What's powering Jeff Bezos and the tech bros' thirst for nuclear energy?

AI USES AN EPIC AMOUNT OF ELECRICITY, AND THAT'S WHY SILICON VALLEY IS GOING NUCLEAR

- Chris Blackhurst

Psychologists devote a lot of time to studying the “bandwagon effect” — the tendency of people to adopt a certain behaviour or style simply because everyone else is doing it. Whether it’s fomo or peer pressure or something else, they feel compelled to climb aboard and give it a go.

Sometimes it can be positive, such as encouraging the playing of sport via pickleball, currently enjoying a London moment. At other times it can be questionable, if not downright harmful. One such in the latter category, at the opposite end of the spectrum from hitting a plastic ball with a paddle, is nuclear energy.

That's right. Having been shunned ever since the Fukushima accident in Japan in 2011, the power source is all the rage.

The most unlikely world leaders are promoting it — Donald Trump, a fossil fuels man to his core, and China’s Xi Jinping. So too are the tech bros. Jeff Bezos and his super-rich pals may have left a carbon footprint totalling at least 1,000 tonnes in emissions from their private jets and superyachts descending on Venice for June’s wedding celebrations but that does not stop the Amazon founder loving nuclear. As do Bill Gates and Sam Altman, also at the multi-day extravaganza. Others in the digital camp, such as Mark Zuckerberg, are enthusiasts, as are finance and investment houses.

For those who care about the planet, nuclear ticks one important box: it is renewable. While that may influence their thinking, it does not explain why reactors and their graphite rods are a major topic of conversation in the Valley and other places where black turtlenecks gather. It’s because they need nuclear to run AI.

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