After acquiring the data center campus near the Susquehanna nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania (USA) from Talen Energy Corporation, Amazon Web Services (AWS) posted on its website a vacancy for a chief nuclear engineer who will be responsible for the development of small modular reactors and establishing relationships with traditional nuclear power plants, writes DatacenterDynamics (DCD).
The applicant for this position must have experience in the design and operation of both utility-scale nuclear power plants and small modular reactors (SMRs). It is stated that he will develop “internal and external strategic plans for nuclear products and fuels” for AWS data centers. The applicant must also be able to conduct due diligence on “specific energy projects.”
His responsibilities will include building relationships with the U.S. Department of Energy and regulators, and working with external partners to design “operably efficient and safe modular nuclear power plants” to support growing energy needs. With the growing demand for power for AI data centers, AWS and other cloud providers have turned to the nuclear energy sector.
Source: Talen Energy
As it became known recently, Microsoft has entered into a 20-year power supply contract (PPA) with the largest nuclear power plant operator in the United States, Constellation Energy, for the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania, which will be put back into operation, and has also formed an entire team to work on nuclear energy and hired a number of qualified specialists. According to unofficial data, Microsoft will pay about $800 million/year for energy. At the same time, the initial cost of restoring Three Mile Island alone will be $1.6 billion.
In April of this year, Equinix signed a 20-year PPA agreement to supply 500 MW from Oklo modular reactors with the possibility of extending it in the future. Two months later, Wyoming Hyperscale (now Prometheus Hyperscale) signed a 100 MW PPA with Oklo. Oracle also said this month that it will build a 1GW data center campus in the US powered by three small modular reactors (SMRs).