>The building and electrical infrastructure are far cheaper than the hardware.
Maybe it's cheaper if we measure by dollars or something, but at the same time we lack the political will to actually do it without something like AI on the horizon.
Nuclear is not very controversial, there are tons of places that would be very happy to have additional reactors, namely those with successful reactors right now. It's just super expensive to build and usually a financial boondoggle.
AI companies are saying they are trying to build nuclear because it makes them sound serious. But they are not going to build nuclear, solar and storage is cheaper more flexible and faster to build. The only real nuclear commitment is Microsoft reopening an old nuclear reactor that had become uneconomic to operate. Building anything new would be a five+ year endeavor, if we were in a place with high construction productivity like China. In the US, new nuclear is 10 years away.
But as soon as Microsoft restarted an old reactor, all their competitors felt like they had to sound as serious, so they did showy things that won't result in solving their immediate needs. Everybody's renewable commitments dwarf their nuclear commitments.
AI companies can flaunt expensive electricity at high cost for high investor impact precisely because electricity is a small cost component of their inputs. It's a hugely necessary input, and the limiting factor for most of their plans, but the dollar amount for the electricity is small. The current valuations of AI assume that a kWh put towards AI will generate far far more value than the average kWh on the grid.
Maybe it's cheaper if we measure by dollars or something, but at the same time we lack the political will to actually do it without something like AI on the horizon.
For example, many data center operators are pushing for nuclear power: https://www.ehn.org/why-microsoft-s-move-to-reopen-three-mil...
That's one example among many.
So I'm hesitant to believe that "electricity is a small cost" of the whole thing, when they are pushing for something as controversial as nuclear.
Also the 2 are not mutually exclusive. Chip fabs are energy intensive. https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/semiconductors/ts...