To fuel AI's insatiable appetite, Nvidia and Big Tech are doubling down on nuclear

By Christine Ji

Nvidia joins Google in backing nuclear-fusion startup Commonwealth Fusion Systems

As energy demand from AI data centers surges, Big Tech companies are throwing their money behind nuclear energy sources.

Artificial intelligence is notoriously power-intensive, and Nvidia Corp. and other Big Tech companies are increasingly turning to the nuclear option to drive growth.

On Thursday, Nvidia's (NVDA) venture-capital arm NVentures participated in a $836 million Series B2 fundraising round for the nuclear-fusion startup Commonwealth Fusion Systems.

The startup spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2018 and is working to commercialize fusion energy through the development of compact, commercially viable power plants enabled by high-temperature superconducting magnets.

Goldman Sachs estimates that after a decade of flat demand, AI needs will raise global data-center power demand by 160% by 2030. Commonwealth Fusion Systems' technology hopes to be a game changer by providing more reliable and carbon-free energy, as power is the biggest bottleneck in developing and training AI.

Investors are taking notice. Other notable new participants in the oversubscribed funding round included Morgan Stanley (MS), hedge-fund legend Stanley Druckenmiller and a consortium of 12 Japanese companies, led by Japanese investing firm Mitsui & Co. Ltd. (JP:8031) (MITSY)

Nvidia joins Alphabet Inc.'s Google (GOOGL) (GOOG) as a Big Tech investor in Commonwealth Fusion Systems; Google has been an investor in the company since 2021. In June, Google increased its stake and signed a strategic partnership with Commonwealth to buy 200 megawatts of clean fusion power from its inaugural power plant in Chesterfield, Va. On Thursday, Google raised its stake yet again.

Chesterfield and other areas in Virginia have emerged as a data-center hotspot. Separately, on Wednesday, Google also announced plans to invest $9 billion in Virginia data centers, including a new buildout in Chesterfield.

The startup has additional connections to Big Tech as well: Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) former chief financial officer, Christopher Liddell, joined its board of directors earlier this month, and former Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt is also an investor.

Commonwealth has raised nearly $3 billion since its founding - roughly a third of all capital invested in private fusion companies.

This isn't Nvidia's first nuclear investment. In June, NVentures participated in a $650 million fundraising round for Bill Gates's nuclear-energy company TerraPower, which is developing nuclear-reactor technology to power data centers.

Also read: Google is making another bet on nuclear energy as it steps up its AI efforts

-Christine Ji

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08-29-25 1430ET