Technology giants are turning to nuclear energy to power the energy-intensive data centers needed to train and run the massive artificial intelligence models behind today’s generative AI applications.

Microsoft and Google are among the firms agreeing deals to purchase nuclear power from certain suppliers in the U.S. to bring additional energy capacity online for its data centers.

This week, Google said it would purchase power from Kairos Power, a developer of small modular reactors, to help “deliver on the progress of AI.”

“The grid needs these kinds of clean, reliable sources of energy that can support the build out of these technologies,” Michael Terrell, senior director for energy and climate at Google, said on a call with reporters Monday.

“We feel like nuclear can play an important role in helping to meet our demand, and helping meet our demand cleanly, in a way that’s more around the clock.”

Google said its first nuclear reactor from Kairos Power would be online by 2030, with more reactors going live through 2035.

The tech giant isn’t the only firm looking to nuclear power to realize its AI ambitions. Last month, Microsoft signed a deal with U.S. energy firm Constellation to resurrect a defunct reactor at the Three Mile Island nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania, whose reactor has been dormant for five years.

The Three Mile Island plant was the location of the most serious nuclear meltdown and radiation leak in U.S. history in March 1979, when the loss of water coolant through a faulty valve caused a reactor to overheat.

Global electricity consumption from data centers, artificial intelligence and the cryptocurrency sector is expected to double from an estimated 460 terawatt-hours (TWh) in 2022 to more than 1,000 TWh in 2026, according to a research report from the International Energy Agency.

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, published a study in April last year that found ChatGPT consumes 500 milliliters of water for every 10 to 50 prompts, depending on when and where the AI model is deployed. That equates to roughly the amount of water in a standard 16-ounce bottle.

As of August, there were more than 200 million people submitting questions on OpenAI’s popular chatbot ChatGPT every week, according to OpenAI. That’s double the 100 million weekly active users OpenAI reported last November.

A political action committee supporting former President Donald Trump has raised about $7.5 million in cryptocurrencies.

Contributors to the Trump 47 joint fundraising committee donated bitcoin, ether and XRP, as well as the U.S. dollar pegged stablecoins tether and USDC, to the GOP presidential nominee’s campaign, according to a Federal Election Commission filing submitted on Tuesday.

The PAC said the latest filing covered donations in the period of July 1 through Sept. 30, but numbers included cumulative contributions.

With the 2024 election just three weeks away and the contest in a virtual dead heat according to polling averages, Trump is counting on a hefty dose of funding from the crypto community. The former president positioned himself as the pro-crypto candidate in this election, a reversal from his previous stance during his time in the White House. In May, he became the first major presidential candidate to accept donations in digital tokens.

Nearly half of all the corporate money flowing into the election has come from the crypto industry, according to a recent report from the nonprofit watchdog group Public Citizen. The sum was raised from a mix of contributors, with Coinbase, Ripple, and venture firm Andreessen Horowitz accounting for most of those business donations. The industry has raised roughly 13 times the amount it brought in during the last presidential election year.

At least 18 donors gave more than $5.5 million in bitcoin to Trump 47, the filing shows. Another seven people gave around $1.5 million in ether.

Contributors hailed from more than 15 states, including a few battlegrounds, plus the American territory of Puerto Rico. Their professions include Lockheed Martin software engineer, Duthie Power Services sales engineer, and a producer for Esperanza Entertainment.

David Bailey, CEO of media group BTC Inc., gave more than $498,000 in bitcoin. Bailey was part of a small army of bitcoin fanatics who indoctrinated Trump in all things bitcoin and helped turned him from a skeptic to an evangelist. The process culminated in Trump headlining the biggest bitcoin conference of the year in Nashville in July.

Trump said in his keynote that his campaign had raised $25 million from the crypto industry, though he didn’t specify the split between digital tokens and dollar donations.

Among the new donors is Chase Herro, one of the co-founders of the Trump family’s new crypto project World Liberty Financial. The platform, which has been described as a decentralized bank where customers will be encouraged to borrow, lend and invest in crypto, launched its token sale on Tuesday.

So far, more than $10.2 million worth of WLFI tokens have been sold, far short of the initial fundraise goal of $300 million. The launch was plagued with technical issues, including the repeated crashing of the website where the sale was taking place.

Mike Belshe, CEO of digital asset security company BitGo, has contributed almost $100,000 in bitcoin.

Brian Murray, a partner at Craft Ventures, gave $6,560 in bitcoin. Craft was founded by pro-Trump venture capitalist David Sacks.

Kresus Labs founder Trevor Traina gave over $25,000 in ether, Chainstone Labs CEO Bruce Fenton donated $60,000 in bitcoin, and Gary Cardone of Cardone Digital Ventures contributed over $840,000 in bitcoin.

Ripple legal chief Stuart Alderoty contributed $300,000 in XRP, as CNBC previously reported. Alderoty attended a Trump fundraising event hosted by Sacks in San Francisco in June.

Alderoty is at odds with Ripple’s billionaire co-founder Chris Larsen, who gave $1 million worth of XRP tokens to Future Forward, a super PAC that’s supporting Vice President Kamala Harris’ run for the White House. Future Forward began accepting donations in crypto in September.

While Larsen shares the crypto industry’s criticism of SEC Chair Gary Gensler and the aggressive approach the Biden administration has taken towards companies in the space, the Ripple chairman said he has more confidence in Harris, in part because she’s from the Bay Area.

“She knows people who have grown up in the innovation economy her whole life,” Larsen told CNBC in an interview this week. “So I think she gets it at a fundamental level, in a way that I think the Biden folks were just not paying attention to, or maybe just didn’t make the connection between empowering workers and making sure you have American champions dominating their industries.”

In addition to Larsen, Uniswap legal chief Marvin Ammori gave money to the Harris Action Fund. Like Ripple, Uniswap is battling claims it violated U.S. securities laws.

On the pro-Trump side, billionaire twins Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss have led the charge, with an aggregate contribution of nearly $1.1 million each. Some of that money was refunded in September because it exceeded the maximum allowed.

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