Big Tech embraces nuclear, but who will pay the price?

AI’s power demands are vast and growing. The Trump administration wants nuclear reactors to meet them. Whether that’s achievable, and whether communities will accept it, is another matter.

We passed cranes, vacant lots and one data centre after another, many still under construction. ‘Check that one out, it’s really huge!’ said Ann Bennett, an activist with the environmental organisation Sierra Club, as she drove us through Virginia’s Loudoun and Fairfax counties close to Washington DC. She was critical of this building explosion. ‘That right there’s the cloud. Just look at it, it’s hard to describe.’

She was right. The landscape is dystopian: behind newly erected powerlines, vast windowless buildings in grey, cream or blue line the straight roads. Over and over we passed huge electrical transformers and building sites. It was only June but temperatures were already soaring above 35ºC. Residents of Virginia’s affluent cities were speeding along ‘Data Center Alley’ in big, air-conditioned cars, heading for their offices in DC or the nearby airport.

Virginia has become the world’s leading data centre hub due to its proximity to the US capital, affordable land, tax incentives, abundant electricity and access to undersea cables that connect North America to Europe. The state is home to hundreds of these centres, with a total installed capacity of 6.2 gigawatts (GW) in the first half of 2025. Virginia’s electricity generation capacity is 29GW, almost half of which comes from gas-fired power plants.

‘What we want to do is we want to keep it [AI] in this country,’ Donald Trump declared in January 2025 as he announced the launch of Stargate, a $500bn private investment project that plans to fund a network of new data centres across the US. ‘China is a competitor and others are competitors.’ Trump acknowledged that these centres would need ‘a lot of electricity’, and suggested combining data centres with energy generation: ‘We’ll make it possible for them to get that production done very easily at their own plants if they want.’ The fossil fuel industry, which gave significant financial funding to Trump’s campaign, has sensed an (…)

Full article: 3 600 words.

Eva Thiébaud

Eva Thiébaud is a journalist.

* Journalist, author of The Frozen Republic: How the Constitution Is Paralyzing Democracy (New York, Harcourt Brace, 1996).

(1) Robert A. Calvert and Arnold De Leon, The History of Texas , Arlington Heights, Ill.: Harlan Davidson, 1990, p. 153. One historian estimates that one black male in 100 between the ages of 15 and 49 was killed by marauding whites between 1865 and the advent of a radical state government in 1868.

(2) Molly Ivins & Lou Dubose, Shrub: The Short but Happy Political Life of George W. Bush, Random House, New York, 2000, pp. 19-42. In 1998 Bush sold his share in the Texas Rangers baseball team for $15m, acquired for $600,000 in 1989.

(3) Gary M. Halter, Government and Politics of Texas: A Comparative View, 2^nd edition, McGraw-Hill, New York, 1999,p. 21.

(4) Chandler Davidson, Race and Class in Texas Politics, Princeton University Press, Princeton, 1990, p. 20.

(5) T.R. Fehrenbach, Lone Star: A History of Texas and the Texans, Macmillan,New York, 1968.

(6) Ibid.

(7) Frank Bruni, "Bush Finds Comfort Zone In a Remote Texas Ranch," The New York Times,22 July 2000.

(9) Louis Dubose, "The Gospels of the Rich and Poor," The Texas Observer, 12 November 1999. The Observer’s extensive coverage of the Bush presidential campaign can be found at http://www.texasobserver.org

(10) Molly Ivins et Louis Dubose, "Bush and the Texas Environment", The Texas Observer, 14 April 2000.

(11) SeeJohn W. Gonzalez, "Urban sprawl in Texas fastest in the country," The Houston Chronicle, 26 December 1999. See also Danièle Stewart, "Do you know the way to San Jose?", Le Monde diplomatique, English edition, July 2000.

(12) The federal government often intervenes in the States of the Union to ensure that fundamental rules, which apply to all Americans, are respected.

(13) Davidson, op. cit.

(14) John M. Broder, "Oil and Gas Aid Bush Bid For President," The New York Times, 23 June 2000. Bush broke all records by accepting nearly $100m in gifts four months before the general election.

(15) Nicholas D. Kristof, "Ally of an Older Generation Amid the Tumult of the 60’s", The New York Times, 19 June 2000.