U.S. Energy Secretary Highlights Nuclear Option for Climate Action [Video]

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told Newsweek that her department is helping big tech and electric utility companies bring more nuclear power to the nation’s grid to meet the rapidly increasing energy demand for data centers.

“That is absolutely one of the pieces of the clean power solution that data centers should look at,” Granholm said in an interview Thursday during Climate Week NYC.

The boom in AI has triggered a massive expansion of bigger and more powerful data centers that consume enormous amounts of electricity. That growth challenges both big tech and power suppliers who want to meet new demand while reducing greenhouse gas emissions from their data operations and power generation facilities.

Despite ambitious climate objectives at many big tech companies, emissions from Google and Microsoft are rising due to AI’s growth.