Nuclear energy could be the solution to the UK’s AI-driven energy crunch, according to a new industry report, which argues that without rapid nuclear rollout, the country will not be able to power the data centres that underpin Britain’s emerging digital economy.

The Nuclear Industry Association’s report, Powering the UK Data Boom, argues that the UK’s current energy system can’t keep pace with the acceleration of AI technologies, with electricity demand from data centres forecast to increase to 33 TWh within the next ten years.

Meeting this demand presents a serious challenge, however, with the NIA warning that energy bottlenecks are choking progress and threatening the ‘five‑9s’ reliability (99.999% uptime) that data centres depend on. 

The report also shows decade-long waits for grid connections, coupled with the highest industrial electricity prices among advanced economies, which it claims is pushing projects overseas to regions with better access to clean, reliable power and competitive pricing.

According to the NIA, nuclear energy can deliver the power needed to keep these data centre projects rooted in the UK, by providing a low-carbon, high-yield supply from a relatively small geographic footprint.

The report said nuclear power is also the most reliable of any major source on the grid. Unlike solar and wind power, the NIA said that nuclear output had shown much less variability over the last five years, with modern reactor designs achieving capacity factors above 90%.

These benefits make nuclear energy a potentially ideal power source for today’s data centres, which demand huge amounts of power in tight quarters and, for latency‑sensitive tasks, must often sit in crowded urban hubs close to end users.

The UK may already be behind the curve. Big tech firms like Google, Meta, and Amazon have announced nuclear energy projects over the last few years to power their AI ambitions, touting the technology’s net-zero credentials.

By comparison, the NIA warned that without urgent action, the UK will continue to rely more on gas to keep its digital infrastructure running, a situation that could fast become critical given plans to build up to 100 new data centres across the country by 2030.

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The issue has already been recognised within government, with the Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce last month calling for a ‘radical reset’ of nuclear regulation in the UK, with its final report warning that current energy sources will be inadequate to produce reliable power supplies to meet Labour’s AI ambitions. 

Urging action, the NIA is calling for government, regulators, the AI sector and energy developers to work together to craft a national strategy that accelerates development of all types of new nuclear reactors, prioritises clean power for critical digital infrastructure, and reforms siting policy to allow for co-location, where nuclear can power data centres directly.

“Britain’s digital future depends on secure, clean energy,” said Tom Greatrex, chief executive of the Nuclear Industry Association.

“We can only build the AI economy of tomorrow with rapid, expedited deployment of clean, reliable, sovereign nuclear power in the mix. The recommendations of the government’s Nuclear Regulatory Taskforce give us a perfect opportunity to create a better framework for deploying nuclear to meet data centre needs, but we must move now.”