Software and cloud-based services giant Oracle is the latest major tech company embracing the concept of small modular reactor (SMR) nuclear as the most energy dense and sustainable microgrid option for future data centers.

Earlier this week, company founder and Chairman Larry Ellison told investors and media that it planned to build a gigawatt-scale data center that will be powered by three nearby SMR reactors. During the quarterly earnings call, Ellison indicated the nuclear-powered data center was under design but didn’t give a concrete timeline.

Most industry observers predict that the earliest SMR projects would not come online until the 2030s.

The stunning rise in data center energy demand brought on by the growth of artificial intelligence and cloud-based computing capacity is compelling many tech companies to pursue the possibilities of small nuclear power, although no SMR has yet been built or even licensed to begin construction for commercial purposes. Idaho National Lab is testing advanced nuclear technologies.

The most recent conventional nuclear power project completed in the U.S., Southern Company’s 1-GW Vogtle 3 and 4 units, took close to a decade and more than $30 billion to complete.

Theoretically, SMR nuclear facilities would vary from 25 MW to 200 MW per unit, would be less expensive to build and partially underground to alleviate safety concerns. The reactors also could provide carbon-free, baseload-level power.

Industry analysts say that coming data center construction could require close to 40-plus GW of new electricity by early 2030. Utilities such as Dominion and AEP are scrambling to figure out ways of meeting that mission critical load expansion.