Google Taps Nuclear Power to Fuel AI Data Center Boom

The agreement covers 20 years and targets 11 nuclear units across Illinois, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. Constellation plans to invest $4.3 billion to upgrade these facilities, aiming to boost both thermal and electrical efficiency. Deliveries from the first of these improved plants are expected to begin in 2028. This move is part of a larger 3,590-megawatt power contract within the PJM Interconnection, the massive power grid serving 67 million people across 13 states and Washington, D.C.

This contract is a direct response to grid instability. PJM capacity prices have surged more than 11-fold since 2024, prompting the grid operator to consider rules that would force data center operators to secure their own power supplies or face potential remote disconnections during peak demand. The race for energy is now a defining feature of the tech sector, with other industry titans following similar paths. Microsoft has already contracted Constellation to restart the Three Mile Island reactor, while Amazon and Meta have signed their own multi-hundred-megawatt nuclear agreements to ensure their infrastructure can handle the exponential growth in global data center consumption, which is projected to double by 2030.