Data centers and AI factories require vast amounts of energy, leading companies to increasingly rely on nuclear power. This is due to its ability to provide a continuous supply of energy and its zero carbon emissions.

Microsoft has purchased the energy produced by the Unit 1 of the Three Mile Island plant in Pennsylvania for 20 years. This unit had ceased operations in 2019 due to its inability to compete with electricity produced using cheap natural gas. However, following this deal, the owning company, Constellation, will invest $1.6 billion to bring it back online by 2028.

Unit 1 used to generate around 837 megawatts of power, enough to supply 800,000 homes. It will provide Microsoft's data centers with clean energy to meet its growing demand for electricity to train and operate AI systems.

A few months ago, Amazon Web Services purchased a 960-megawatt data center in Pennsylvania that is directly powered by the neighboring Susquehanna nuclear plant, which generates 2.5 gigawatts of energy.

Bill Gates has also opened the first fourth-generation nuclear plant cooled by molten salt, as part of his company TerraPower's efforts to expand the use of nuclear energy to meet the growing demand for electricity that other cleaner, non-radioactive energy sources like wind and solar seem unable to fulfill.