Nuclear power crucial for UK data centre growth, says Amazon chief

According to the head of the world’s largest cloud computing company, the UK requires a significant expansion of its nuclear energy capacity to support the escalating demands of data centres, particularly those powering artificial intelligence (AI).

Amazon Web Services (AWS), a division of retail giant Amazon, is set to invest £8 billion in new data centres across the UK over the next four years. These facilities, essentially vast warehouses filled with computer systems, provide the remote processing power for a range of services, including AI, data processing, and streaming. However, their energy consumption is substantial; a single data centre can consume as much power as a small town.

Matt Garman, chief executive of AWS, told the BBC that nuclear energy presents a “great solution” to meet the energy-intensive needs of data centres. He described it as “an excellent source of zero carbon, 24/7 power”.

While AWS is the world’s largest corporate buyer of renewable energy, and has funded numerous solar and wind farm projects in the UK, the sheer scale of future demand is driving this call for nuclear power.

Currently, the UK’s 500 data centres consume 2.5% of the nation’s total electricity. Industry projections indicate this figure will rise to 6% by 2030. The organisation responsible for managing the UK’s power grid estimates that, by 2050, data centres alone could consume nearly as much energy as the entire industrial sector does today.

In an interview with the BBC, Garman emphasised the importance of long-term energy planning for AWS. “It’s something we plan many years out,” he said. “We invest ahead. I think the world is going to have to build new technologies. I believe nuclear is a big part of that particularly as we look 10 years out.”

Via BBC