Meta, best known for being the parent company of Facebook, has struck a deal with the largest nuclear powerplant operator in America; Constellation Energy. Starting in 2027 Meta will receive all energy produced by the Clinton, IL powerplant. This is the first time a company has ever commited to buying all of its energy from a single nuclear power plant.
Why? So Meta can continue to power its generative artificial intelligence tools and research. Generative AI takes incredible amounts of power to train and run. To put it into perspective, a Google search takes about 0.3 watt-hours of electricity, while a ChatGPT request uses 2.9 watt-hours.
The implications here are that nuclear energy has come back into vogue after having a reputation of being volatile and dangerous. Constellation’s stock has risen 5% following the announcement. Besides that, earlier this year, on May 23rd, President Trump signed an executive order aiming to quadruple the capacity of nuclear energy in the US by 2050. All of these point to an increase in business for nuclear energy.
