Meta’s plan for nuclear-powered AI data centre thwarted by rare bees

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Plans by Mark Zuckerberg’s Meta to build an AI data centre in the US that runs on nuclear power were thwarted in part because a rare species of bee was discovered on land earmarked for the project, according to people familiar with the matter.

Zuckerberg had planned to strike a deal with an existing nuclear power plant operator to provide emissions-free electricity for a new data centre supporting his artificial intelligence ambitions. 

However, the potential deal faced multiple complications including environmental and regulatory challenges, these people said.

The discovery of the rare bee species on a location next to the plant where the data centre was to be built would have complicated the project, Zuckerberg told a Meta all-hands meeting last week, according to two people familiar with the meeting. 

The blow comes as rivals Amazon, Google and Microsoft have all struck deals recently with nuclear power plant operators to fulfil rising energy demands from data centres as they race to train and maintain power-hungry AI models. One AI query consumes up to 10 times the energy of a standard Google search. 

Meta is continuing to explore various deals for carbon-free energy, including nuclear, one of the people said. Meta declined to comment.

Nuclear is increasingly viewed as a way to get stable, round-the-clock power during the AI wars between Big Tech groups.

However, it also has high upfront costs and takes a long time to build. The industry in the west has historically relied on Russia for nuclear fuel.

Critics also caution about the risks of the build-up of toxic radioactive waste, which has to be stored safely or it could severely harm both humans and the environment. 

In September, Microsoft announced it would revive the mothballed nuclear plant at Three Mile Island, Pennsylvania.

Amazon paid $650mn in March to put a data centre next to the Susquehanna Steam Electric nuclear plant, also in Pennsylvania.

Google, meanwhile, said last month that it had ordered six to seven small modular nuclear reactors from US start-up Kairos Power, becoming the first tech company to commission new nuclear power plants.

Zuckerberg is under pressure to prove to investors that his all-in bet on AI will bear fruit, as the company’s capital expenditures continue to rise given its investments in running servers and data centres to develop the cutting-edge technology. 

Zuckerberg told staffers at the all-hands that, had the deal gone ahead, Meta would have been the first Big Tech group to wield nuclear-powered AI, and would have had the largest nuclear plant available to power data centres, two people said.

One person familiar with the matter said that Zuckerberg has been frustrated with the lack of nuclear options in the US, while China has been embracing nuclear power. China appears to be building nuclear reactors at a fast clip, whereas only a handful of reactors have been brought online over the past two decades in the US. 

Meta said it had already hit “net zero” emissions in its operations since 2020.  

Additional reporting by Malcolm Moore in London