Nvidia and the German energy company PreussenElektra (PEL) said on October 21 that they will study whether PEL's shut-down nuclear plant sites can be converted into AI data centers. The partnership is preliminary, and the sites would not draw on nuclear power.
The two will assess existing grid links, available land and industrial infrastructure, to see whether the sites meet the demands of what Nvidia calls "AI factories": data centers built for high-performance AI work. PEL is responsible for decommissioning and dismantling eight of the roughly 30 nuclear plants Germany is taking apart, and those eight are the likely candidates. Germany shut down its last operating plants in April 2023. No investment amounts, approved development plans or construction agreements exist yet.
The appeal is speed. A new data center needs well-located land, industrial-zone approvals, water nearby for cooling and high-voltage grid connections. A nuclear plant site already has all four, and Nvidia hopes that reusing them will significantly cut cost and development time.
The notable part is what the plan leaves out. Take away the reactor and what remains is a permitted industrial parcel with heavy wiring attached. That suggests the scarce input in the AI buildout is no longer only chips but sites that can be approved and energized quickly, and Nvidia is looking at ground it does not have to fight over.
The caveat sits in the grid link. A connection that once carried power out of a generating plant is not automatically one that can feed a large data center, and that is exactly what the feasibility work has to establish. The sites are also still being dismantled, which may shape any timeline. Until someone commits money, this is a study of whether the idea works, not a project.