Google signs a deal with Kairos Power for 500 MW of advanced nuclear power by 2035

Background

Data centres run all the time, so the electricity behind them has to be available all the time. Google has been buying clean power for well over a decade: since 2010 it had signed more than 115 clean-energy agreements totalling over 14 GW of generation capacity ^[1]. The company also works toward two public goals — running on 24/7 carbon-free energy and reaching net zero emissions. The first is stricter than buying an annual volume of renewable electricity: it means matching every hour of consumption on a given grid with carbon-free generation. That calls for power sources that can run on demand, which is where nuclear enters the picture.

The agreement

On 14 October 2024 Kairos Power and Google signed a Master Plant Development Agreement creating a path to deploy a fleet of advanced nuclear power projects in the United States totalling 500 MW by 2035 ^[1].

The commercial structure is that Kairos will develop, construct and operate a series of advanced reactor plants, and sell Google energy, ancillary services and environmental attributes under power purchase agreements ^[1]. A power purchase agreement (PPA) is a long-term contract: a buyer commits to take electricity from a particular plant on agreed terms, which gives the plant's owner a predictable revenue stream and makes construction easier to finance. Ancillary services are the grid-support products a generator can sell alongside electricity — helping keep frequency and voltage steady, and standing by to balance supply and demand. Environmental attributes are the certificates representing the zero-carbon character of the output, which a buyer can count toward its own clean-energy targets.

Key details

The plants will be sited to supply clean electricity to Google data centres, with the first deployment by 2030 in support of Google's 24/7 carbon-free energy and net zero goals ^[1].

The two companies said the deal is the first corporate agreement in the United States for multiple deployments of a single advanced reactor design ^[1]. That is a different shape from a one-off purchase: instead of a single plant bought by a single customer, the agreement covers a series.

Mike Laufer, Kairos Power's chief executive and co-founder, said the partnership would let Kairos advance down the learning curve toward cost and schedule certainty for its commercial product ^[1]. The learning-curve idea is straightforward: the more often a design is built, the more the construction crews, the supply chain and the engineers learn, and the more predictable each successive unit becomes. Michael Terrell, a Google senior director, called the agreement a key part of commercialising and scaling the advanced energy technologies needed for Google's net zero and 24/7 carbon-free energy goals ^[1].

Why it matters

For a reactor developer, the hard part is often not the engineering alone but the order book. Early units are expensive, and costs come down only if more units follow — which is exactly what the learning curve Laufer described depends on. An agreement that contemplates a series of plants, with a large customer signed up before construction, addresses both problems at once ^[1].

For Google, the deal adds a firm, around-the-clock source to a portfolio built through more than a hundred individual clean-energy agreements totalling over 14 GW ^[1]. The 500 MW programme is a commitment to a class of technology rather than to a single facility, and it extends the company's procurement from buying existing generation to helping bring new generation into being.

The agreement also puts a template on the table: a corporate buyer acting as anchor customer for one reactor design across several units. It sets out a path rather than a finished build, and it is described by the two companies as the first US corporate arrangement of this shape ^[1].