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To me, the action is the juice—if by “action,” you mean “data center needs,” and by “juice,” you mean “energy.”
With organizations and companies around the world facing higher AI and data center usage, the question of how to power those parts of the industry that are driving the new e-economy is a pressing one. Where and how to generate that energy is a pressing question, Energy Exemplar CEO David Wilson told IT Brew.
“The dominant investments today are solar and wind...batteries, and then also gas, as picking all those assets that fill the gaps when the sun isn’t shining and the wind isn’t blowing,” Wilson said.
High pressure. As IT Brew has reported, speculative inquiries from companies looking to build data centers make it hard to predict how to generate that power and what the cost will be. Some experts recommend turning to some out-there ideas like orbital centers as an off-planet solution that would, hypothetically, make the energy demands less burdensome.
Different regions in the US, however, are looking into more grounded options. Entergy Louisiana is looking into natural gas to meet the state’s data center demand. West Virginia coal plants are powering centers in nearby northern Virginia. In Texas, an already stretched power grid is facing even more stress from demanding data centers across the state.
Splitting the difference. In Washington State, Amazon has invested in four small modular nuclear reactors to power its data centers. That’s part of a growing interest in using the controversial energy technology to fuel the demands of AI data centers, real estate services firm CBRE Director of Data Center Research Gordon Dolven told Constructions Dive.
“There is growing interest in placing data centers near nuclear facilities,” Dolven said. “This is driven by the need for a reliable, 24/7 power source to support the growing demand for data centers, especially with the rise of AI workloads.”
Wilson cautioned that while nuclear development may be an important part of the answer to data center energy needs, the proposals for modular reactors and other technologies are still years in the future.
“It’s not something for the 2020s,” Wilson told IT Brew. “We’ll see whether it materially impacts the 2030s—but the 2040s and beyond, I think that will be the impact.”