TerraPower, a Bill Gates-backed next-gen nuclear company, on Friday announced a deal with Meta to build up to eight small modular reactors in the U.S. with the first two coming online as soon as 2032.
Tech companies have been aggressively pursuing new clean energy solutions as they race to build power-hungry data centers that support burgeoning AI services.
TerraPower’s deal with Meta will provide the tech giant with up to 2.8 gigawatts of energy using its Natrium nuclear technology. The facilities include an energy storage system, which can provide shorter-term bursts of power that bring the total output to 4 gigawatts.
The contract with the Bellevue, Wash.-based company marks Meta’s largest single nuclear deal to date.
“To successfully address growing energy demand, we must deploy gigawatts of advanced nuclear energy in the 2030s. This agreement with Meta is designed to support the rapid deployment of our Natrium technology that provides the reliable, flexible, and carbon-free power our country needs,” Chris Levesque, TerraPower president and CEO, said in a statement.
The news is an endorsement of TerraPower’s approach, said Andrew Richards, the company’s vice president of government affairs, in a GeekWire interview. The company landed the deal after participating in Meta’s request for proposal.
“They chose us out of all other advanced reactor developers and said they have strong confidence in our technology,” Richards said.
Meta and Terrapower “are looking all over the country,” he added, to build the first facility containing the dual reactors. If all are eight are ultimately constructed, the reactors should be operational by 2035.
Meta’s broader nuclear play
Meta’s announcement includes additional partnerships with Vistra and Oklo:
- Vistra operates the Perry and Davis-Besse plants in Ohio and the Beaver Valley plant in Pennsylvania. The arrangement will extend the lifespan of these reactors and increase their energy production. Meta will purchase more than 2.1 gigawatts of electricity from the facilities.
- Oklo is a Sam Altman-backed company developing small modular reactors with a project being built in Pike County, Ohio. The reactors are expected to begin operating as soon as 2030 and contribute up to 1.2 gigawatts to the grid.
Meta in June signed a deal with Constellation that supports the relicensing and extends the operations of its nuclear plant in Illinois.
“Our agreements with Vistra, TerraPower, Oklo, and Constellation make Meta one of the most significant corporate purchasers of nuclear energy in American history,” said Joel Kaplan, Meta’s chief global affairs officer, in a statement.
The tech sector has come under increased scrutiny for the utility ratepayer and environmental impacts of its scramble for power. Three Democratic senators last month sent letters to Amazon, Microsoft, Google, Meta and three data center firms informing them of an investigation into their effects on residential power bills.
Meta addressed these concerns in announcing the new partnerships.
“This work builds on our ongoing collaboration with electric utility companies and power providers to plan for and meet our energy needs years in advance of our data centers becoming operational. We pay the full costs for energy used by our data centers so consumers don’t bear these expenses, and we support the broader grid through our energy agreements,” the company stated.
Amazon and Microsoft are likewise pursuing nuclear energy.
- Amazon is partnering with X-energy and others to build a nuclear facility in Richland, Wash., near the state’s only operational nuclear plant.
- In 2024, Microsoft signed a 20-year deal to restart a nuclear reactor at Pennsylvania’s Three Mile Island — a facility made infamous by a partial meltdown in 1979.
TerraPower’s progress
TerraPower is currently building its first commercial reactor in Kemmerer, Wyo., and plans to start splitting atoms by 2030. The reactor is located near a retiring coal plant.
In December, the company said it completed a key regulatory milestone, passing the Nuclear Regulatory Commission staff’s final safety evaluation for its permit. Additional permitting hurdles remain, but the company hopes to be the first to deploy a utility-scale, next-gen reactor in the U.S.
The company launched in 2006 and is building on technology used in an experimental breeder reactor in Idaho that operated for nearly 30 years before shutting down. Its Natrium reactor includes technology from TerraPower and GE Vernova Hitachi Nuclear Energy.
In June TerraPower disclosed $650 million in new funding from Gates, who helped start TerraPower, as well as the venture arm of chip giant NVIDIA. It previously raised more than $1 billion, including investments from Gates as well as South Korea-based SK Inc. and SK Innovation, according to PitchBook. TerraPower has additionally been awarded roughly $2 billion from the U.S. Department of Energy.
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