US power provider Talen Energy has expanded its existing nuclear energy relationship with Amazon, to allow a new data centre to plugged into a nuclear power station.

Talen announced this week it will “provide carbon-free energy from Talen’s Susquehanna nuclear power plant (in Pennsylvania) to Amazon Web Services data centres in the region.”

Nuclear power is increasingly being pursued as a solution to meet the energy needs of modern data centres. A report from International Energy Agency (IEA) had recently warned that AI was set to drive surging electricity demand from data centres.

Nuclear-power

And last month AWS chief executive Matt Garman had called on the United Kingdom increase its supply of nuclear energy for data centres.

But on the eastern side of the United States, Talen, “will supply electricity to Amazon for operations that support AI and other cloud technologies at Amazon’s data centre campus adjacent to Susquehanna, with the ability to deliver to other sites throughout Pennsylvania.”

Both parties also said they “will also explore building new Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) within Talen’s Pennsylvania footprint and pursue expanding the nuclear plant’s energy output through uprates, with the intent to add net-new energy to the PJM grid.”

Last October AWS had signed three agreements on developing small modular reactors, which are an advanced kind of nuclear reactor with a smaller physical footprint, allowing them to be built closer to the grid. There are no SMRs in the US, at the moment.

Talen meanwhile will provide Amazon with 1,920 megawatts of nuclear power through 2042, with options to further extend its duration. The power delivery schedule will ramp over time, expecting to achieve the full volume no later than 2032.

“Our agreement with Amazon is designed to provide us with a long-term, steady source of revenue and greater balance sheet flexibility through contracted revenues,” said Talen President and CEO Mac McFarland.

“Amazon is proud to help Pennsylvania advance AI innovation through investments in the Commonwealth’s economic and energy future,” added AWS VP of Global Data Centres Kevin Miller. “That’s why we’re making the largest private sector investment in state history – $20B – to bring 1,250 high-skilled jobs and economic benefits to the state, while also collaborating with Talen Energy to help power our infrastructure with carbon-free energy.”

Two data centres

Amazon will spend $20 billion constructing two data centres in Pennsylvania, including one alongside Talen’s nuclear power plant.

Amazon had purchased a nuclear-powered data centre from Talen for $650 million back in March 2024, but now will reportedly demolish that facility and build a build a bigger data centre in its place on the site.

The advantage of a data centre plugged directly into a nuclear power plant is that it can take years off development, and is much faster way of procuring power than connecting to the local electricity grid.

AWS’s Kevin Miller also told The Associated Press that the company will build another data centre complex just north of Philadelphia.

Earlier this month Meta Platforms and Constellation signed “a 20-year power purchase agreement (PPA) for the output of the Clinton Clean Energy Center to support Meta’s clean energy goals and operations in the region with 1,121 megawatts of emissions-free nuclear energy.”

In October 2024, Alphabet’s Google signed what it called the world’s first corporate agreement to buy power from multiple small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs).

Microsoft also signed a power purchase agreement in September 2024 to restart a shuttered nuclear reactor at Three Mile Island.