Wednesday, March 6, 2024

Amazon Just Bought A Nuclear Powered Data Center

I imagine quite a few data centers get some of their juice from nukes but this one is a direct link, straight into the vein, so to speak.

From The Register, March 4:

Amazon goes nuclear, acquires Cumulus Data's atomic datacenters for $650M
E-commerce giant on the hook for 480MW of power from Susquehanna plant

Amazon Web Services on Monday added a nuclear-powered datacenter campus to its public cloud empire as part of a $650 million deal with Talen Energy – an owner and operator of electricity generation and transmission facilities in the US.

The acquisition will see AWS take possession of a datacenter complex named Cumulus that Talen built adjacent to its 2.5 gigawatt Susquehanna nuclear power plant in northeast Pennsylvania.

When Cumulus opened in early 2023, it boasted 48 megawatts of capacity, and Talen planned to grow the facility to 475 megawatts upon completion. Under Amazon's ownership, the facility could become even larger.

Under the terms of the sale, Amazon will acquire the Cumulus facility and associated power infrastructure. Another facility on site, the Nautilus Cryptomine, will remain jointly owned by Talen and an outfit called TeraWulf.

It's not clear what the sale to AWS will mean for tenants already in the Cumulus facility. The Register asked Talen Energy for comment and we'll let you know if we hear anything back.

We do know that Talen won't get all of the cash up front. The electricity biz is due to receive $350 million when the deal closes and an additional $300 million which will be paid out upon the completion of development milestones over the course of 2024....

....MUCH MORE

The story goes on to discuss small modular reactors in relation to data centers, something we've also looked at.
Previously:
Bill Gates and Microsoft's Azure cloud, Jeff Bezos and Amazon's cloud and Google's cloud have all been putting money into SMR research for their own purposes. From The Register, December 30, 2022: 

Regulators sign off on NuScale small modular nuclear reactor, first to get approval

10 Breakthrough Technologies 2019: Bill Gates at Technology Review

A Nuclear Renaissance? 

"Study shows advantages of charging electric heavy-duty vehicles with small modular nuclear reactors"
You didn't think we posted Build Your Own Nuclear Power Plant to no practical purpose did you?

Nukes: Polish Copper Miner To Power Developments With Small Modular Reactors

Surviving in Your Doomsday Bunker with Portable Nuclear Power to Spare

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