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Artificial intelligence may come for our jobs one day, but before that happens, the data centers it relies on are going to need a lot of electricity.
So how do we power them and millions of U.S. homes and businesses without generating more climate-warming gases?
Microsoft founder, billionaire philanthropist and investor Bill Gates is betting that nuclear power is key to meeting that need — and he’s digging into his own pockets to try and make it happen.
Gates has invested $1 billion into a nuclear power plant that broke ground in Kemmerer, Wyo., this week. The new facility, designed by the Gates-founded TerraPower, will be smaller than traditional fission nuclear power plants and, in theory, safer because it will use sodium instead of water to cool the reactor’s core.