The biggest “pain point” is that AI will require huge amounts of energy from somewhere. The International Energy Agency estimates that the amount of electricity used by data centres and AI could double by 2026, at which point they could use as much energy as Japan. A single ChatGPT query has been estimated as requiring as much electricity as 15 Google searches.
“This tech is an energy hog,” says Ray Rothrock, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist who has invested in a string of nuclear start-ups. “The big issue with nuclear today is lack of demand. But now, the demand is increasing because of AI.”
While tech companies have made large investments in wind and solar, their intermittency may not be well suited to data centres that run 24 hours a day. Nuclear has no such problem.
Last Energy’s management team and investor list highlight the increasingly close ties between the nuclear industry and the tech sector. While Crabb is an energy industry veteran, the company’s founder Bret Kugelmass was previously a drone entrepreneur. Investors include PayPal co-founder Luke Nosek.
Crabb says the Silicon Valley types bring “that innovative, problem solving mindset [and] they see nuclear as the obvious answer” to the question of how to power AI.
This boom in nuclear interest is being felt far beyond the Californian borders, with Canadian uranium miner Cameco saying last week that the tech sector’s interest had triggered a surge in demand for its reactor fuel.
“Gone are the days of rolling out new technology without worrying about future potential runaway environmental impacts… nuclear is the clear winner,” Cameco’s chief executive Timothy Gitzel said.
The almost-limitless piles of cash AI companies have to spend helps. OpenAI and its major investor Microsoft are reportedly developing plans for the world’s biggest supercomputer, a $100bn (£79.66bn) project codenamed Stargate. Analysts at Morgan Stanley speculated last week that this would be powered by several nuclear plants.
Altman, meanwhile, has been telling investors that he needs up to $7 trillion to achieve his AI dreams, a budget that would include setting up his own energy supplies.
He has claimed that AI will be the most important invention in human history, but says that without a nuclear revival, we will not be able to power it.
“There’s a lot of parts that are hard,” he said recently, adding: “Energy is the hardest part.”