Google just signed a 20-year contract to keep nuclear reactors humming for its data centers.
The company struck a power purchase agreement with Constellation, the largest nuclear plant operator in the US, to fund efficiency upgrades at six existing nuclear sites. The deal guarantees Constellation steady revenue to cover the cost of those upgrades, which the companies say represents more than $4.3 billion in new investment. Over the next five years, the work is expected to add 890 megawatts of generating capacity across the six sites combined. Google has not said which data centers the new power will feed or exactly when each upgrade comes online within that five-year window.
This is less a nuclear renaissance than a hedge. AI-driven demand for data center power has outpaced grid buildout for years, and uprating reactors that are already running is one of the few ways to add meaningful clean capacity without building anything from scratch. A 20-year agreement also tells Constellation's lenders this spending is low-risk, which is the entire point of a power purchase agreement.
Expect more of these: Microsoft and Amazon have made similar bets on existing reactors rather than wait a decade for new ones to get built.