The Deep Mind: Meta goes nuclear to power AI supercluster

Posted on January 12, 2026 by michelleclarke2015
 
 ENERGY Meta goes nuclear to power AI supercluster

Nuclear power is staging a comeback in the U.S. — largely due to the voracious energy demands of AI — and Meta just became one of the largest corporate buyers of nuclear power in U.S. history. 

On Friday, the company announced that it had signed three deals with nuclear companies to onboard 6.6 GW of power by 2035. This energy boost is particularly needed for Meta’s AI factories, including its AI supercluster, “Prometheus,” which is scheduled to come online later in 2026 in New Albany, Ohio. 

One of Meta’s three deals is with Vistra to increase power production at existing plants in Pennsylvania and Ohio that will help power Prometheus. The other two deals are with Oklo and TerraPower to create “safer, advanced nuclear reactors” and accelerate the development of next-gen nuclear technologies. 

Bill Gates is a key investor in TerraPower. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is a lead investor in Oklo and stepped down as chairman of the board of directors in 2025 so the company could sign up more AI customers that compete with OpenAI.

For context, Meta already runs 30 data centers worldwide. But an AI factory typically needs at least 5-10x the power of a traditional data center. There are several reasons why: GPUs demand significantly more power than CPUs, AI training and workloads typically have higher utilization, they run 24/7 unlike traditional data centers that support more peaks during working hours, and they need additional cooling. 

A traditional data center uses 100 MW or less of power, while AI factories are now scaling up to 1 GW or more. That’s enough energy to power about 800,000 homes, roughly the equivalent of the entire city of San Francisco or the state of New Mexico. And Meta has even larger ambitions with its Hyperion supercluster in Louisiana that will start at 2 GW of power, scale up to 5 GW over time, and be nearly the same size as Manhattan.

That’s why Zuckerberg needs to onboard enough energy to power these behemoths.
One of the key advantages Google has over OpenAI, Anthropic, Meta, and other AI competitors is that it already has the compute and the energy to scale up in the years ahead. That’s why we’re seeing Meta, OpenAI, and the rest of the industry scrambling to sign deals for AI factories and power plants as quickly as possible. They believe their AI growth and ambitions will hit a wall without it. Zuckerberg has stated his intention that “Meta Superintelligence Labs will have industry-leading levels of compute and by far the greatest compute per researcher.” My biggest question is: what happens when there’s a technology breakthrough that makes AI 100x more efficient, so it doesn’t need as much power?  
Unknown's avatar

About michelleclarke2015

Life event that changes all: Horse riding accident in Zimbabwe in 1993, a fractured skull et al including bipolar anxiety, chronic fatigue …. co-morbidities (Nietzche 'He who has the reason why can deal with any how' details my health history from 1993 to date). 17th 2017 August operation for breast cancer (no indications just an appointment came from BreastCheck through the Post). Trinity College Dublin Business Economics and Social Studies (but no degree) 1997-2003; UCD 1997/1998 night classes) essays, projects, writings. Trinity Horizon Programme 1997/98 (Centre for Women Studies Trinity College Dublin/St. Patrick's Foundation (Professor McKeon) EU Horizon funded: research study of 15 women (I was one of this group and it became the cornerstone of my journey to now 2017) over 9 mth period diagnosed with depression and their reintegration into society, with special emphasis on work, arts, further education; Notes from time at Trinity Horizon Project 1997/98; Articles written for Irishhealth.com 2003/2004; St Patricks Foundation monthly lecture notes for a specific period in time; Selection of Poetry including poems written by people I know; Quotations 1998-2017; other writings mainly with theme of social justice under the heading Citizen Journalism Ireland. Letters written to friends about life in Zimbabwe; Family history including Michael Comyn KC, my grandfather, my grandmother's family, the O'Donnellan ffrench Blake-Forsters; Moral wrong: An acrimonious divorce but the real injustice was the Catholic Church granting an annulment – you can read it and make your own judgment, I have mine. Topics I have written about include annual Brain Awareness week, Mashonaland Irish Associataion in Zimbabwe, Suicide (a life sentence to those left behind); Nostalgia: Tara Hill, Co. Meath.
This entry was posted in Uncategorized and tagged , , , , . Bookmark the permalink.

Leave a comment