The head of Amazon Web Services (AWS), Matt Garman, has emphasised the necessity for the UK to expand its nuclear energy capacity to meet the escalating power demands of artificial intelligence (AI) technologies. AWS, a subsidiary of Amazon and the world’s leading cloud computing provider, intends to invest £8 billion in new data centres across the UK over the next four years.
Data centres, essential for AI, data processing, and streaming services, consume substantial amounts of energy, comparable to that of small towns. Garman highlighted nuclear power as a “great solution” for these energy needs, describing it as “an excellent source of zero carbon, 24/7 power” .
Currently, the UK’s 500 data centres account for 2.5% of the nation’s electricity consumption, a figure projected to rise to 6% by 2030. In comparison, Ireland’s 80 data centres consume 21% of its electricity, expected to increase to 30% within the same timeframe. The UK’s National Grid anticipates that by 2050, data centres alone will consume nearly as much energy as all current industrial users combined.
Garman noted that AWS’s planning process considers future energy needs extensively: “It’s something we plan many years out,” he said. “We invest ahead. I think the world is going to have to build new technologies. I believe nuclear is a big part of that particularly as we look 10 years out.”
French energy company EDF is constructing a significant new nuclear plant at Hinkley Point in Somerset, with a decision pending on another at Sizewell in Suffolk. EDF’s UK Chair, Alex Chisholm, concurred with Garman’s perspective: “Why are data centre providers turning to nuclear? They will need a lot of energy, reliably,” he told the BBC. “Replication of Hinkley Point C, alongside the roll out of SMRs, can power Britain’s digital economy.”
Small Modular Reactors (SMRs), which are approximately the size of a football stadium, offer a more compact alternative to traditional nuclear plants like Sizewell or Hinkley. Amazon is collaborating with SMR firms in Washington and Virginia and could potentially partner with Rolls Royce, which is developing its own SMR designs in the UK.
A spokesperson for the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero stated that modular reactors “will play particularly important roles in growing energy-hungry sectors like AI and we’re shaking up the planning rules to make it easier to build nuclear power stations across the country.”
However, the deployment of SMRs is still years away, and establishing new grid connections can be a lengthy process. Jess Ralston from the Energy and Climate Intelligence Unit commented: “Investors can be waiting years for grid connections holding back growth.” She added, “Nuclear could be a way of supplying data centres’ power needs, but hardly any SMRs have been built anywhere in the world and traditional nuclear remains very expensive and takes a long time to build. So, it may be a while, if ever, for this to be a viable solution.”
For the original article, please refer to the BBC News website.
