The artificial intelligence boom is supercharging the development of next-gen nuclear energy technology. Big Tech and private equity are catalyzing the research and development of cutting-edge approaches to round-the-clock clean energy production as hyperscalers add power-hungry data centers to the grid at a blistering rate.
“A single hyperscale data center can consume as much electricity as 50,000 homes,” writes the MIT Energy Initiative. “U.S. data centers consumed more than 4% of the country’s total electricity in 2023, and by 2030 that fraction could rise to 9%,” MIT goes on to warn. This means that the expansion of data centers to fuel the integration of AI into everything from your email provider to your electric toothbrush is seriously changing the way we consume – and therefore the way we produce – energy in the United States and beyond. Not only do we need to expand energy production capacity at a breakneck pace, but we also need to find a way to do so without throwing climate goals out the window.
As a result, venture capital funding is going gangbusters for both nuclear fusion and fission startups. According to a recent report from Axios, global investment in both fission and fusion has topped USD $4.5 billion across 81 companies in 2026 so far. At this rate, projections show that 2026 will shatter the previous annual record of $6.2 billion for 93 companies in 2025.
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