Under the agreement, Kairos Power will develop, construct and operate a series of advanced nuclear plants, selling energy and ancillary services to Google under Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs).

Google said the plants will be sited in relevant service territories to supply clean power to its data centers. The first deployment is targeted by 2030 to support the tech giant’s 24/7 carbon-free goals. The additional power from this agreement will complement Google’s existing use of renewables, like solar and wind.

The deal represents the first corporate agreement for multiple deployments of a single advanced reactor design in the United States. 

“Our partnership with Google will enable Kairos Power to quickly advance down the learning curve as we drive toward cost and schedule certainty for our commercial product,” said Mike Laufer, Kairos Power CEO and co-founder.

California-based Kairos Power is working on fluoride salt-cooled, high-temperature reactor technology. The company’s 35 MW thermal reactor will test the concept of using molten salt as a coolant and test the type of nuclear fuel.

Last December, the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a construction permit to Kairos for its Hermes test reactor in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. This was the first construction permit NRC has issued for a reactor that uses something other than water to cool the reactor core.

In July of this year, Kairos Power began construction on the Hermes reactor. The project aims to be operational in 2027. Hermes’ primary objective will be to demonstrate Kairos Power’s ability to produce affordable nuclear heat. Hermes will not produce electricity.

Kairos Power aims to develop a larger version for commercial electricity that could be used in the early 2030s.

Technology giants like Microsoft, Google and Amazon are driving significant electricity demand, primarily through rapidly expanding data center operations. These data centers are essential for supporting cloud services, AI development and other digital operations. The facilities require vast amounts of power to run servers, cooling systems and other infrastructure needed to store and process massive amounts of data.

According to a study published by EPRI in May, data centers could consume up to 9% of U.S. electricity generation by 2030 — more than double the amount currently used.

The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) issued a construction permit to Kairos Power for the Hermes reactor in December 2023. Kairos’ reactor uses molten salt for cooling and is the first non-light-water reactor to be permitted in the U.S. in over 50 years.

Kairos Power said Barnard Construction Company began to perform site work earlier this month at the Hermes site. Barnard and Kairos Power have also started collaborating to build the third Engineering Test Unit (ETU 3.0)—a non-nuclear demonstration co-located in Oak Ridge that will generate supply chain, construction and operational experience to inform the Hermes project.

Both Hermes and ETU 3.0 will be built using modular construction techniques piloted at Kairos Power’s testing and manufacturing campus in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Reactor modules will be fabricated in Albuquerque and shipped to Oak Ridge for assembly, demonstrating the potential of a factory-built small modular reactor design to transform conventional nuclear construction.

The project aims to be operational in 2027. Hermes’ primary objective will be to demonstrate Kairos Power’s ability to produce affordable nuclear heat. Hermes will not produce electricity.

However, Kairos Power aims to develop a larger version for commercial electricity that could be used in the early 2030s. It says the construction permit is a big step forward as it works to deploy clean, safe, reliable and affordable energy.

Hermes is a joint effort by Kairos Power and its partners, including Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory, EPRI, and Materion Corporation. In addition, Kairos Power is partnering with Los Alamos National Laboratory to produce TRISO pebble fuel for Hermes in the lab’s Low-Enriched Fuel Fabrication Facility.​

Kairos Power has also established a cooperative development agreement with the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) to provide engineering, operations, and licensing support for Hermes.