{"id":17149,"date":"2026-01-28T23:20:07","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T23:20:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/28\/roundtables-why-ai-companies-are-betting-on-next-gen-nuclear\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T23:20:07","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T23:20:07","slug":"roundtables-why-ai-companies-are-betting-on-next-gen-nuclear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/28\/roundtables-why-ai-companies-are-betting-on-next-gen-nuclear\/","title":{"rendered":"Roundtables: Why AI Companies Are Betting on Next-Gen Nuclear"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>AI is driving unprecedented investment for massive data centers and an energy supply that can support its huge computational appetite. One potential source of electricity for these facilities is next-generation nuclear power plants, which could be cheaper to construct and safer to operate than their predecessors.<\/p>\n<p>Watch a discussion with our editors and reporters on hyperscale AI data centers and next-gen nuclear\u2014two featured technologies on the MIT Technology Review <a href=\"https:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/2026\/01\/12\/1130697\/10-breakthrough-technologies-2026\/\"><em>10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2026<\/em> list<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Speakers:<\/strong> <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/author\/Amy-Nordrum\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Amy Nordrum<\/a><\/strong>, Executive Editor, Operations; <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/author\/casey-crownhart\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Casey Crownhart<\/a><\/strong>, Senior Climate Reporter; and <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/author\/mat-honan\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Mat Honan<\/a><\/strong><br \/>Editor in Chief<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-vimeo wp-block-embed-vimeo wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Why AI Companies Are Betting on Next-Gen Nuclear\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/1159397330?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p><strong><em><strong>Recorded on January 28, 2026<br \/><\/strong><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Related Stories: <\/strong><\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/tr102026?utm_souce=Roundtables\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><u>10\u00a0Breakthrough Technologies of 2026\u00a0 list<\/u><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/2026\/01\/12\/1130006\/next-gen-nuclear-reactors-power-energy-2026-breakthrough-technology\/?utm_source=roundtables\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><u>Next-gen\u00a0nuclear\u00a0reactors<\/u><\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.technologyreview.com\/2026\/01\/12\/1129982\/hyperscale-ai-data-centers-energy-usage-2026-breakthrough-technology\/?utm_source=roundtables\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"><u>Hyperscale\u00a0AI\u00a0data\u00a0centers<\/u><\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AI is driving unprecedented investment for massive data centers and  [&#8230;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[226],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17149","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17149","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17149"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17149\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17149"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17149"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ideainthebox.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17149"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}