Google backs $4.3 billion nuclear upgrades at six US plants to power AI data centers

A 20-year nuclear agreement

Google has signed a 20-year power purchase agreement with Constellation, the largest operator of nuclear plants in the United States, to modernize six nuclear plant sites across the country. According to The Verge, the contract guarantees Constellation enough revenue to cover more than $4.3 billion in new investment, focused on efficiency upgrades at existing plants rather than new construction.

The work will touch 11 reactors at sites in Illinois, Pennsylvania and New Jersey. Over the next five years, the companies expect new equipment at each location to add a combined 890 megawatts of nuclear capacity — output that Google and Constellation compare to a single large new reactor or three small modular reactors, but delivered faster by getting more out of plants that already exist.

A grid under strain

All six sites sit on the PJM Interconnection, the largest power grid in the US, which covers 13 states and Washington, DC, and includes Loudoun County, Virginia — the country's densest cluster of data centers. According to The Verge, PJM has had trouble keeping up with the demand those facilities generate.

An independent market monitor filed a complaint with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission last year arguing that PJM planned to connect large data centers it could not reliably serve, raising the risk of blackouts. In January, the Trump administration and the governors of every state in the PJM footprint jointly called for an "emergency" power auction to support new generation through long-term contracts. PJM postponed that auction last week after FERC directed it to revise the proposal so that data centers are less likely to inflate other customers' bills. Those bills are already climbing: electricity prices in New Jersey have risen 54 percent over five years.

A second, larger deal

Alongside the nuclear agreement, Google also signed a separate 15-year energy supply deal with Constellation that is substantially larger, at 2,700 megawatts. It guarantees revenue for Constellation's other existing plants in PJM regardless of what fuel they burn. Nuclear supplied 70 percent of Constellation's generating capacity last year, with renewables at 8 percent and gas and oil at 22 percent, according to the company's sustainability report. Gas also makes up the biggest share of PJM's overall fuel mix, and data center growth is driving a wave of new gas projects across the US.

Google's own numbers show why it is locking up supply: the company reported an 18 percent rise in carbon emissions last year alongside a 37 percent jump in electricity demand.

Why it matters

The agreement marks a shift in how hyperscale cloud operators secure power. Rather than waiting a decade or more for new reactors, Google is financing upgrades to plants that already hold licenses and grid connections, with the added capacity expected within five years. For PJM, 890 megawatts of carbon-free generation arriving that quickly could ease the strain that has lifted prices and drawn federal scrutiny.

But the larger, fuel-agnostic follow-on deal shows Google is also willing to lean on gas-fired generation to keep its data centers running. That keeps the company's climate commitments under pressure even as its nuclear commitments grow, and it signals that the AI buildout will be financed through whatever capacity the grid can sell — clean or not.