As data centers drive unprecedented energy demand, Google is betting that meeting the grid’s needs for affordable, reliable power requires going beyond wind, solar, and batteries. The company has evolved from a massive clean energy consumer to a driving force in the industry, providing the investment and demand needed to scale technologies like geothermal, nuclear, and carbon capture — technologies bridging the “missing middle” between innovation and scalability.
“I think we are really at a very interesting inflection point where the demand for AI services is intersecting with a critical moment in the energy sector. Companies like Google and our peers can have an outsized role in the energy sector,” said Lucia Tian, Google’s head of advanced energy technologies, on a recent episode of Where the Internet Lives. “I think we can play a catalytic role by making investments and by bringing innovation to the table,” she added.
Tian said Google remains invested in wind and solar generation but is also focusing on building out firm power sources like enhanced geothermal to access heat in untapped locations. In 2021, Google partnered with Fervo Energy on Project Red, a massive geothermal project that began powering Google’s Nevada data centers in 2023. Project Red has grown dramatically over the past few years, from a 3.5 MW pilot to a 115 MW commercial power plant. “I think geothermal is ready to be scaled right now,” Tian said.
When it comes to nuclear power, Tian said that, until recently, static energy demand had dampened incentives to lean into the industry. But with the growth of AI, demand has skyrocketed. “Just a few years ago we were still in an environment where nuclear reactors were being shut off,” she said. “We’ve lost a lot of the experience and supply chain and the ability to build these large scale energy infrastructure projects, especially in nuclear.”
Tian’s team has taken a multi-pronged approach to address the challenge — reopening shuttered facilities like Iowa’s Duane Arnold plant, working to scale up existing nuclear facilities, and collaborating with Kairos Power to develop small modular reactors.
In order to ensure stable, reliable power at Google facilities, Tian and her team have also turned to long-duration energy storage. Last year, Google partnered with Energy Dome, whose CO2 batteries can dispatch surplus power back to the grid for periods of eight to 24 hours.
Tian knows that Google can’t transition from fossil plants overnight, which is why she helped lead the company’s first carbon capture project at Broadwing Energy Center in Illinois. The site uses operational Class VI wells for permanent CO2 sequestration, creating a model for other gas plants to drastically lower their emissions.
The nexus of AI and energy has also highlighted a striking paradox: while the rise of advanced computing requires enormous amounts of energy, it can also accelerate the energy transition itself. Tian calls this approach “AI for energy.”
Currently, Google uses AI to expedite geothermal exploration by modeling potential drill sites, and the company’s data centers themselves are being transformed into “grid assets” by leveraging AI tools that shift compute tasks based on peaks and troughs in demand.
Google is also using its Cloud AI tools in collaboration with Westinghouse to speed up the process of building nuclear facilities. “When the last large nuclear reactors were built in this country, literally pieces of paper had to change hands every time a cable had to be pulled at the construction site,” Tian said. “We can change that, and we have to change that.”
For the full conversation with Lucia Tian, listen to her interview on season 5 of Where the Internet Lives.
This is partner content, brought to you by Google. It borrows from an interview that appeared on Where the Internet Lives, a podcast produced in partnership by Latitude Studios and Google.
Where the Internet Lives is an award-winning podcast about the unseen world of data centers. Follow on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
