Oracle is designing a data center to be powered by 3 small nuclear reactors

Oracle Chairman and co-founder Larry Ellison had a “strange” announcement to make this week.

Artificial intelligence’s demand for electricity is so “insane” that Oracle wants to source power from next-generation nuclear technology, Ellison told investors on the company’s earnings call on Monday.

“Let me say something that’s going to sound really weird,” Ellison told analysts. “Well, you’d probably say, well, he says weird things all the time, so why is he announcing this. It must be really weird.”

Oracle is designing a data center that will require more than a gigawatt of electricity, the company’s chairman said. The data center will be equipped with three small nuclear reactors.

“The location we’re putting in and the power location, they already have a building permit for three nuclear reactors,” Ellison said. “These are small modular nuclear reactors to power a data center. That’s how crazy it gets. That’s what’s going on.”

Ellison did not disclose the location of the data center or future reactors. CNBC has reached out to Oracle for comment.

Small modular nuclear reactors are new designs that promise to accelerate the deployment of reliable, carbon-free energy as energy demand grows from data centers, manufacturing and the wider electrification of the economy.

Generally, these reactors are 300 megawatts or less, about one-third the size of a typical reactor in the current US fleet. They will be broken down into parts and then assembled on site, reducing the capital costs that hinder larger plants.

Currently, small modular reactors are the technology of the future, and nuclear industry executives generally agree that they will not be commercialized in the United States until the 2030s.

According to the Nuclear Energy Agency, three small modular reactors are currently operating in the world. Two are in China and Russia, central geopolitical rivals of the United States.A test reactor is also operating in Japan.