US AI data centers and deployment challenges for small modular reactors: proposed regulatory policy recommendations

Abstract

Global demand by cloud vendors, financial institutions, and telecommunication companies for commercially owned and operated data centers is accelerating in recent years. Given this increase in energy supply required to meet US artificial intelligence (AI) technology consumer demand, the paper addresses state-of-the-art traditional data centers and their capacity transition to process AI technologies. Subsequently, the paper explains the potential for small modular (nuclear) reactors—and specifically a subset, micro modular reactors (MMRs)—to generate the increasing energy demanded for AI processing capabilities, including the potential of quantum computing, through 2035 and beyond. Lastly, the paper identifies a primary regulatory policy challenge—the federal regulatory construction review/permitting process—that hinders an environmentally sustainable source of nuclear energy to power such AI data centers and offers policy recommendations to assist in meeting this federal regulatory policy challenge and encourages the deployment of MMR technologies.