Meta signed a 20-year deal with a nuclear plant in Illinois, becoming the latest tech giant to partner with the industry to power an expansion into artificial intelligence.
Starting in June 2027, Meta will fund approximately 1.1 gigawatts of energy from Constellation Energy’s Clinton Clean Energy Center in Clinton, Ill., which is the entire output from the site’s sole reactor.
Just one gigawatt is enough to power nearly 1 million homes.
The deal is Meta’s first in nuclear power, echoing moves from industry leaders like Microsoft, Google and Amazon, which have also signed deals to fund nuclear plants as their massive data centers require more and more power.
“Securing clean, reliable energy is necessary to continue advancing our AI ambitions,” Urvi Parekh, Meta’s head of global energy, said in a statement.
In December, Meta put out requests for nuclear partners, saying it wanted to add between one and four gigawatts of new nuclear energy across the country.
That proposal is separate from the Clinton plant funding.
Meta’s two-decade deal will support the plant’s continuing operations and relicensing efforts.
The plant will not directly power Meta’s data centers, but it will support the tech giant’s clean energy goals and operations in the region, Constellation said.
The deal will also expand Clinton’s clean energy output by 30 megawatts, preserve 1,100 high-paying jobs and deliver $13.5 million in annual tax revenue, the nuclear power firm said.
Meta told The Post it is not disclosing the terms of the deal.
Constellation did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The nuclear center had been in danger of closing when its zero emissions credit expired in 2027.
“We are proud to partner with Meta because…they figured out that supporting the relicensing and expansion of existing plants is just as impactful as finding new sources of energy,” Joe Dominguez, president and chief executive of Constellation, said in a press release.
“Sometimes the most important part of our journey forward is to stop taking steps backwards.”
In September, Microsoft signed a 20-year agreement with Constellation to restart Three Mile Island – the site of the worst nuclear meltdown in US history.
Google last month said it partnered with Elementl Power to fund three new nuclear sites, and last year teamed up with Kairos Power on small modular reactors.
Amazon has invested more than $500 million to develop small modular reactors and bought a data center powered by the Susquehanna nuclear plant.
Meta joined some of these tech giants in March to sign a pledge to support tripling nuclear energy worldwide by 2050.
The government has also taken action to spur nuclear plant construction.
Last month, President Trump signed four executive orders aimed at speeding up the building of nuclear power plants, including small modular reactors.
One of his new rules requires regulators to take no more than 18 months to approve applications for new reactors.
The White House also set a goal to quadruple the number of nuclear power plants in the US from about 100 gigawatts to 400 gigawatts by 2050.