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The massive $100 billion Stargate joint venture will reportedly be powered, at least in part, by solar and batteries.
The renewable power installations will be built by SoftBank-backed SB Energy, according to a report from Bloomberg, though they’re unlikely to be the venture’s sole source of energy. Stargate is a partnership between OpenAI, Oracle, and SoftBank Group, which promises to build a slew of new data centers to drive artificial intelligence applications.
The growth in cloud computing and AI in recent years has sent developers and tech companies scurrying to secure power. The U.S. Department of Energy expects that data centers could consume as much as 12% of all power produced in the U.S. by 2028, up from 4.4% in 2023. The looming crunch could leave 50% of new data centers underpowered by 2027.
Nuclear power has emerged as a darling of data center developers and tech companies. Google signed a 500-megawatt deal with nuclear startup Kairos, and Microsoft is restarting one of the shuttered reactors at Three Mile Island. Data center operator Switch announced an agreement in December with Oklo, the Sam Altman-baked small modular reactor company, for 12 gigawatts of capacity.
But nuclear’s recent history has been beset by cost overruns and delays. The fresh crop of nuclear startups were largely founded to overcome those hurdles by modularizing and mass producing reactor components. If all goes as planned, the approach could speed approvals and construction of new nuclear plants.
But despite progress, none of the startups has yet to complete a reactor, and the first of their commercial reactors aren’t expected to come online until 2030, doing little to ease the near-term energy shortage. Natural gas power plants, another possible source for data centers, will also take years to build.
Solar and wind farms are much quicker to stand up. Compared with nuclear and natural gas plants, they can be completed in about half the time, according to one study of 50 years worth of power plant projects. More recent estimates suggest that the average time to completion for a solar power plant is around 18 months. Because of their inherent modularity, they can start producing power before the bulk of the project is complete.
The longest part of any solar project is permitting and interconnection, when the facility is connected to the grid. For data centers, grid connections can be optional — many could take power directly from the source. And given the apparent urgency of Stargate, it’s possible that permitting could be sped along, too, leaving solar as the likely frontrunner for the first data centers.
Tim De Chant is a senior climate reporter at TechCrunch. He has written for a wide range of publications, including Wired magazine, the Chicago Tribune, Ars Technica, The Wire China, and NOVA Next, where he was founding editor. De Chant is also a lecturer in MIT’s Graduate Program in Science Writing, and he was awarded a Knight Science Journalism Fellowship at MIT in 2018, during which time he studied climate technologies and explored new business models for journalism. He received his PhD in environmental science, policy, and management from the University of California, Berkeley, and his BA degree in environmental studies, English, and biology from St. Olaf College.
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