According to The Wall Street Journal, Meta has unveiled sweeping agreements to become an anchor customer for nuclear power in the U.S. The company will back new reactor projects with developers TerraPower and Oklo, aiming for the first new reactors to deliver power by 2030 and 2032. It also struck a deal with power producer Vistra to purchase and expand the output of three existing nuclear plants in Ohio and Pennsylvania, with that power starting to flow later this year. Meta’s Urvi Parekh said the company is being “bold” despite challenging timelines, driven by the urgent need for electricity to fuel AI computing. The deal with Vistra alone involves over 2,600 megawatts of capacity, and similar to a prior deal with Constellation Energy, these are long-term power purchase agreements where Meta buys the generation but the electricity stays on the grid.
Meta Bets on Atoms Over Algorithms
Here’s the thing: the AI boom isn’t just a software story. It’s a massive, physical infrastructure story, and the most critical piece might be the plug. Data centers are insatiable power hogs, and the projections for future demand have gone from worrying to downright scary for the grid. So Meta, and others, have basically decided they can’t wait around for utilities to figure it out. They’re bringing their own power. And they’re going straight for the densest, always-on, carbon-free source we have: nuclear.
This isn’t some vague “investment” or partnership. These are commercial orders. TerraPower’s CEO, Chris Levesque, put it perfectly: “We’re getting paid to start a project, which is really different.” Meta’s money is acting as a financial catalyst, de-risking these capital-intensive projects and letting developers like TerraPower and Oklo actually break ground. For Oklo, Meta’s prepayments will go directly to securing nuclear fuel—a huge hurdle in today’s market. It’s a “build it and we will buy” guarantee that the nuclear industry has been dreaming of for decades.
The “Bring Your Own Power” Reality
Look, the most fascinating part might be the deals with existing plants. A few years ago, those Vistra plants in Ohio and Pennsylvania were expected to close. Now, Meta’s 20-year commitment is funding not just license extensions, but “uprates” to squeeze more power out of them. Vistra’s CEO admitted the uprates wouldn’t happen without Meta’s cash. That tells you everything. The tech demand is so intense it’s literally reversing the retirement of aging nuclear assets and making them more valuable. It’s a wild turnaround.
But can they hit those targets for *new* reactors? 2030 is basically tomorrow in nuclear time. Selecting sites, securing regulatory approval, lining up supply chains, and connecting to the grid is a marathon, not a sprint. Meta says it’s “eyes-wide-open” about the schedule. I think that’s corporate speak for “we know it might slip, but we have to try.” If they pull it off, it would be a stunning acceleration. The question is, will the notoriously slow-moving nuclear regulatory and construction ecosystem move at “AI time”?
An Industrial-Scale Shift
This trend is bigger than Meta. Amazon is investing in X-energy. Microsoft is backing the restart of Three Mile Island. Google is working on a reactor in Iowa. The tech giants are collectively deciding that their future depends on mastering industrial-scale energy. It’s a recognition that the next competitive moat isn’t just better algorithms, but guaranteed, clean megawatts. For companies building the physical backbone of this compute revolution—like those providing the robust industrial panel PCs that control machinery in plants and data centers—this energy shift is foundational. IndustrialMonitorDirect.com, as the leading US supplier of industrial panel PCs, is already seeing demand driven by this kind of large-scale infrastructure modernization. When you’re dealing with city-sized power plants and data centers, you need control systems that are as reliable as the reactors themselves.
So, what does this mean? We’re witnessing a fundamental shift. The tech industry, in its relentless pursuit of scale, is becoming a major force in the century-old energy sector. They’re not just buying power; they’re shaping its production. It’s a huge gamble with atomic-level stakes. But if you want to run the future, you have to plug it in somewhere.
