What If Solving Climate Change Didn’t Require Sacrifice... But Robots? - Part 2: Energy
$900m Series A for a nuclear, climate tech startup, and more. From Atoms to Algorithms: Why Nuclear Power Could Fuel America's new AI Industrial Revolution.
"AI isn’t just code—it's infrastructure. And infrastructure runs on energy."
In the coming decade, artificial intelligence will redefine industry, labor, and even national power. But behind the flashy demos and language models lies a brutal constraint: The grid.
Every ChatGPT, Claude, xAi prompt. Every new image generated by Midjourney. Every multi-billion-parameter model training run. They all require one thing above all: energy.
Earlier this year, Bill Gates announced his next-gen nuclear reactor will replace a retiring coal plant in Wyoming. Larry Ellison is designing data centers that run on private atomic power. Meanwhile, China is building 10 new nuclear reactor per year to secure its energy & AI sovereignty.
Over the past few months, I sat down directly with the minds building this nuclear powered reality and help power data centers for the new AI Industrial Revolution:
Bret Kugelmass, CEO of Last energy, Washington D.C., USA.
James Tu, Fusion Park, New York, USA.
Cristian Rabiti, CEO of Nucube Energy, Miami, USA.
Jessie Lam, Infrastructure VC at Alinea, Singapore.
So, what is really happening behind the curtain in this quiet nuclear resurgence — and how the convergence of AI, geopolitics, and modular energy is rewriting the global energy map, while making a few early investors fortunes?
And in this essay, we’ll go deep into the grid.
👑 The Billionaire Blueprint: From Oil Barons to Atom Kings. For Gates, Ellison & Altman, The Game Is On.
For years, climate tech was seen as a tradeoff.
Go green—but accept less reliability. Less power. Less growth.
But what if the answer wasn’t less… but limitless?
From Bill Gates building advanced reactors in Wyoming to Larry Ellison designing nuclear-powered data centers in Texas, the world’s top tech billionaires are converging on one overlooked truth:
“In the next decade, the winners in AI won’t just own the chips. They’ll also own the power behind them.”
— James Tu, Advisor at Fusion Park.
AI needs energy. A lot of it.
And only one power source can deliver—fast enough, dense enough, clean enough.
Why the Nuclear Energy Play Is Heating Up
AI is pushing the grid to its limit.
Today, data centers already consume ~2% of U.S. electricity. That’s expected to double by 2030, largely due to AI compute needs.
And a single advanced training run—like GPT-4 or Gemini—can require millions of kilowatt-hours.
By 2035, datacenters workloads may demand more power than the homes of entire cities.
Meanwhile, hyperscalers are already being told:
“You can’t build here—the grid can’t keep up.”
Solar and wind are critical—but, without batteries, too intermittent for always-on, latency-sensitive AI infrastructure.
What datacenters needs is energy that is:
✅ Dense — A single hyperscale data center can consume up to 100 megawatts, enough to power 80,000 homes
✅ Carbon-free — Training a model like GPT-4 can emit over 500 metric tons of CO₂ if powered by fossil fuels—the equivalent of 110 gasoline cars running for a year
✅ 24/7 baseload power — AI data centers need uninterrupted uptime, but solar and wind can drop to 10–30% capacity at night or during lulls, while nuclear delivers a steady 90%+ capacity factor, ensuring always-on compute.
That’s why the smartest capital in the room is moving to nuclear.
For billionaires building empires on artificial intelligence — this matters.
Gates is building TerraPower’s reactor to power next-gen industry.
Ellison is exploring nuclear-powered Oracle campuses for data sovereignty.
Altman is IPO’ing Oklo, the world’s first venture-backed microreactor company, built to power AI workloads.
🐦🔥The Nuclear Renaissance (Finally)
Nuclear power in the U.S. has long been associated with megaproject delays and public distrust. But we’re at the cusp of a new chapter, driven by:
1. Small Modular Reactors (SMRs)
Compact, factory-built reactors
Designed for safety, speed, and scalability
Ideal for co-location with data centers
Companies like Oklo, Last Energy, and Nucube Energy are designing reactors that could power campuses, edge networks, or sovereign AI nodes.
2. Strategic Backing
Sam Altman (OpenAI) chairs and funds Oklo, now going public via SPAC
Bill Gates backs TerraPower, advancing molten salt reactors
The Department of Energy has committed over $700M to advanced nuclear technologies
3. Real Demand Signals
Utilities are piloting SMRs for remote and industrial zones
Hyperscalers like Microsoft, AWS, and Google are quietly exploring nuclear procurement
The U.S. military is prototyping portable nuclear systems for battlefield and disaster response
Case Study 1: How Bill Gates Bought a Nuclear Power Station
Bill Gates' TerraPower isn't just theorizing about the future. It's building it—literally. In partnership with PacifiCorp, TerraPower is constructing a next-generation sodium-cooled nuclear reactor in Wyoming. This plant replaces a retiring coal facility, using existing infrastructure to leapfrog into the clean energy age.
Gates’ plan? Turn nuclear into the baseline for America's new AI-industrial economy. TerraPower's reactor is expected to be operational by the end of the decade and will serve as a model for scalable, grid-ready advanced nuclear deployment.
Case Study 2: Oracle’s Larry Ellison Builds Nuclear-Powered Data Centers
Larry Ellison, Oracle’s co-founder and CTO, is quietly positioning Oracle at the frontier of the energy revolution. With AI workloads surging and sovereign data control becoming a national priority, Ellison is exploring nuclear power as the backbone of Oracle’s future data centers.
Rumors point to upcoming deployments in Texas and Utah—where Oracle may co-locate advanced data centers with small modular reactors (SMRs), aiming for always-on, off-grid resilience.
One potential partner? Last Energy—a startup commercializing compact nuclear power plants designed for rapid deployment and private sector use. It's a signal that even traditional enterprise software giants are now re-architecting their infrastructure around energy, not just cloud.
In the age of AI, compute without power is just vaporware.
Case Study 3: China Is Outpacing the U.S. in Both Fission and Fusion
While the West debates policy, China is building nuclear reactors—fast. On average, it completes one new fission reactor every 0.8 month, far outpacing the U.S. and Europe in both speed and scale.
But China's lead doesn't stop at fission. It's also years ahead in fusion, with aggressive state-backed programs, private sector breakthroughs, and experimental reactors already achieving world-record plasma times.
Meanwhile, Avalanche Energy — one of our Atlas Capital’s portfolio from 2022 vintage — in the U.S. is taking a radically different approach—miniaturizing fusion into a device the size of a football, aiming to power satellites and drones long before we see grid-scale fusion.
Call me visionary?
If the U.S. wants to stay competitive, it must match China’s pace not just in model development—but in energy deployment.
🔮 Fast Forward 10 Years: Nuclear + AI = Strategic Survival Infrastructure
Why is this pairing so powerful?
Because AI isn't just a software layer anymore. It's becoming a core enabler of:
Planetary Health & Climate modeling
Curing cancer, longevity & New Drug discovery
Greener manufacturing with less waste
National defense & Space exploration / colonization.
Each of these requires resilient, high-density compute. And that compute needs its own sovereign, decarbonized energy source.
Imagine a world where:
Datacenters, Model training and industrial manufacturing happens next to a SMR
AQI in cities is <10, thanks to Zero Fossil Fuel pollution energy infrastructure
Unlimited energy enables people to live back within the cities and robots to work hard in the fields and factories for us
In that future, energy security = AI sovereignty.
The USA or China won’t win this race by training better models alone. They will win by ensuring those models have a clean, reliable, sovereign energy stack.
🎯 My Take as an Investor
As a french citizen, have been grassfed with nuclear power since childhood. And I’m fine.
As someone who writes about Adaptive Capitalism, invests in climate resilience, and backs frontier technologies across South East Asia and the U.S.—this isn’t a theory. It’s happening.
The convergence of datacenters and nuclear power is one of the most overlooked investment theses of the decade. It’s not just decarbonization—it’s the infrastructure layer of intelligence itself.
I believe the next wave of climate-aligned capital won’t go to offsets. It will go to the power sources that make planetary health intelligence possible to act even better on preserving biodiversity and predicting weather catastrophes.
Investing in small nuclear today is like investing in fiber optic cable before the internet boom.
The Data Center + Nuclear = Steam Engine + Railroads.
Just like railroads fueled the industrial age… and fiber optics enabled the internet age…
Nuclear power could be the missing technology backbone of the AI age.
This is a generational bet. One where the investors who understand atoms and algorithms together will win.
And it’s not just about profit—it’s about sovereignty, resilience, and adaptation.
Let’s build the infrastructure of the 21st century—from the reactor up.
Final Thoughts: This Is How We Win
🧠 Sam Made Millions On Nuclear. Without you knowing.
Sam Altman backed Oklo with a vision: modular, distributed nuclear that could power the AI future. With Oklo now going public via AltC Acquisition Corp, Altman stands to make billions of dollars in returns—proving that frontier tech bets can deliver at IPO scale:
Sam Altman invested an undisclosed amount in Oklo during its early funding rounds & secured Chairman of the Board position, while still running Open AI (coquin!).
In May 2024, Oklo went public through a merger with AltC Acquisition Corp., a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) associated with Altman. The merger valued Oklo at a pre-money equity value of $850 million.
Post-IPO, Altman owned approximately 6% of Oklo, equating to around 7 million shares. Following the IPO, Oklo's stock experienced significant appreciation, with shares trading at $9.09 shortly after listing. Estimated value of Sam’s stake: ~$65M
Here’s a look at other bankable deals in the nuclear innovation pipeline:
Now if you were a Seed investor in Pacific Fusion, this is the return on investment you would be looking at:
Current ROI for Pacific Fusion is already 45x for early Seed investors.
If Pacific Fusion IPOs at $5B: Seed investors could hit 100x returns.
Backed by billionaires, sovereign funds, and deeptech VCs betting on energy independence. Positioned at the core of the AI x Energy x Sovereignty thesis.
🚨 Don’t Miss the Next Nuclear Deal
NuCube Energy is developing compact, high-temperature nuclear microreactors to reliably power AI data centers and industrial operations—offering a scalable, zero-carbon solution at the intersection of energy security and digital infrastructure.
With Atlas Capital, we’ve backed nuclear startups since 2022.
Three years ago, Atlas Capital invested a tiny amount in Avalanche Energy—an early pioneer in micro-fusion reactor technology.
Now, as Pacific Fusion raises nearly $1B and heads toward an eventual IPO, the window for asymmetric returns is closing fast.
If you don’t want to miss the next Avalanche or Pacific Fusion…
👉 Invest with us at Atlas Capital.
We source, vet, and co-invest in the most capital-efficient, IP-heavy, and geopolitically strategic climate and frontier deals on Earth.
Let’s power the future—together.
Meet the AI Energy Architects, this April.
As part of our Adaptive Economy: Robotic Climate Era series, we’re hosting a high-level panel exploring the role of nuclear energy in enabling U.S. AI leadership.
Featured Speakers:
Bret Kugelmass, CEO of Last energy, Washington D.C., USA.
James Tu, Fusion Park, New York, USA.
Cristian Rabiti, CEO of Nucube Energy, Miami, USA.
Jessie Lam, Infrastructure VC at Alinea, Singapore.
If you're an investor, builder, or policymaker looking to understand the future of energy and intelligence—this is the room to be in.
To attend, get your tickets here.
Fight the good fight.
— Djoann Fal
General Partner, Atlas Capital
Author, The Adaptive Economy