Google, Kairos Power to Build 50-MW Nuclear Reactor for TVA Grid

Alphabet’s Google and nuclear-technology startup Kairos Power have agreed to build a 50-megawatt advanced reactor, known as Hermes 2, that will connect to the Tennessee Valley Authority’s electric grid by 2030. Under the deal, TVA will buy the plant’s output to supply electricity to Google data centers in Tennessee and Alabama, marking the first U.S. power-purchase agreement for an advanced reactor of this type. Kairos and Google will assume the construction and first-of-a-kind cost risk, while TVA provides the revenue stream through the long-term purchase contract. The reactor, which won a construction permit from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission in November 2024 and will be sited near Oak Ridge, Tennessee, uses liquid-salt cooling, allowing it to operate at low pressure and with smaller materials than conventional light-water reactors. The collaboration is intended to demonstrate that smaller, standardized nuclear units can be built more quickly and affordably than traditional gigawatt-scale plants, helping meet rising U.S. electricity demand from artificial-intelligence workloads while keeping carbon emissions in check. Kairos aims to scale the design to 75 megawatts and deploy additional units later this decade.