Powering the Future: AI, Quantum Computing, and the Return of Nuclear Energy

The biggest roadblock in the way of AI and quantum computing’s evolution isn’t innovation or regulation. It’s energy. The need for clean power grows along with these technologies. AI training already consumes staggering amounts of electricity, and quantum computing won’t be able to scale without world changing breakthroughs in its power consumption.

To progress, we have to accept an uncomfortable truth: We can’t meet the future’s energy demands with today’s infrastructure, and the solution lies in an old, rejected technology. 

A Crisis of Clean Consumption

A single advanced AI model requires hundreds of megawatt-hours for training. Multiply that by the thousands of models being trained and deployed globally, and it matches a small country’s energy consumption. On top of that, there’s the energy required to run those models in real time, across billions of devices and services.

Quantum computing faces the same problem as it progresses. Quantum systems must be cooled to near absolute zero, and this process consumes an enormous amount of energy, for now. As quantum computers scale up in qubits and complexity, their energy demands will grow even more intense.

This isn't a distant issue. The energy costs of AI alone are already pressing the limits of our aged grids, and quantum computing isn’t even commercially viable yet. There’s a bottleneck dead ahead.

Fueling the Future With the Past

To meet this demand, governments and private enterprises will be forced to change the public perception of nuclear energy. For decades, any mention of nuclear power elicits memories of Chernobyl, Three Mile Island, and Fukushima. These disasters seared themselves into the public psyche and made nuclear a dirty word in many parts of the world. 

But nuclear energy is not what it used to be. It is exponentially safer, more efficient. Modern reactors are designed with passive safety systems that make meltdowns nearly impossible. Some new designs such as molten salt reactors and small modular reactors offer even greater safety.

Technology has advanced dramatically in the 40 years since Three Mile Island. It’s time to let go. Public perception must evolve if we’re going to build the energy infrastructure required for our future, and if we want to lead that future. But we won’t achieve this until it is an absolute necessity. When the power goes out because of AI’s power consumption, people will forget about those old fears.

Due to the benefits, government will work to reframe nuclear energy in the public’s mind as safe and vital. It’s already happening quietly. The rhetoric will follow. When the choice becomes "keep up with technological advancement or stagnate," nuclear will come back to us.

Bridging the Gap: Solar, Coal, and Innovation

Nuclear energy can’t solve everything overnight. It takes many years to plan, approve, and construct a nuclear power plant. Even with streamlined regulation and modern designs, there is still a time lag. In the meantime, we need other solutions.

Data centers are already investing heavily in renewable energy, especially solar. Massive solar farms in will be built along server farms. It’s a step in the right direction, especially when paired with battery storage and other technologies that help balance the grid. However, solar alone cannot meet the demands of AI. The sun doesn’t shine at night, and AI doesn’t sleep.

Coal is undergoing a quiet transformation too. Many coal plants are being retrofitted with cleaner technologies. Instead of releasing mercury filled wastewater into ash ponds that poison rivers and fish, the water is purified and recycled within the plant itself. It's strange to say, but coal is cleaner than it was. 

Like it or not, coal will help us get to nuclear. It's not ideal, but these plants already exist, it's necessary.

The Hardware Breakthrough

Right now, much of AI’s power draw comes from inefficiencies in hardware. GPUs, TPUs, and classical chips all have thermal limits and energy ceilings. But what if that changes? What if a new generation of chips can perform the same computations using a fraction of the energy?

This kind of breakthrough will create an explosion in capability. AI scales faster, quantum computing exits the lab and enters the outside world, and entirely new classes of applications become viable. 

When we combine abundant, clean energy with hyper efficient processing, we won’t just be living in a completely different world.

The Moment Everything Changed

AI already influences everything from healthcare to logistics to creativity. With quantum computing, they have the power to reshape society at every level. This change comes with risks and responsibilities. The choices we make about energy, regulation, accessibility, and ethics today will determine what that world looks like tomorrow.

Mistakes will be made, but if we take proactive steps now, we can reduce them.

The technologies that define our future are straining against the limits of our present. Energy is the bridge and the barrier.

If we can shift from fear to foresight, from reactive fixes to proactive investments, we’ll come out on the other side better off.

The future begins with bringing a past power source into the present.