A recent JLL report revealed crucial information on data centers in 2025. Unsurprisingly, AI will continue to fuel the data center industry and the demand for more data center infrastructure, with billions already invested by major tech companies. However, the major blockage to data center development remains power. While one part of the issue is power scarcity, another is the years it takes to build transmission lines.
One sought after solution for the increasing energy demands of data centers’ AI and other high-performance computing applications is nuclear power. Not only do tech companies happen to be the major occupiers of data center space, they also have some of the most strict net zero targets.
Nuclear energy is viewed as a clean and reliable energy source to traditional power grids for data centers. While there are limitations for developing large-scale nuclear facilities, the focus is actually on a different form of nuclear energy, small modular reactors (SMRs). Although SMR technology is still being developed and may not be deployed commercially until at least 2030, it does bring hope that power criteria for data centers can be met.
The report also notes that advancements in GPUs will lead to a need for thermal management systems, particularly looking at liquid cooling technology on the rise as well.
