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

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

Demand for electricity from artificial intelligence is getting so “crazy” that Oracle is looking to secure 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 bizarre,” Ellison told analysts. “Well, you’d probably say, well, he says bizarre things all the time, so why is he announcing this. It must be really bizarre.”

Oracle is designing a data center that will require more than a gigawatt of electricity, the company’s president said. The data center will be powered by three small nuclear reactors, he added.

“The site and the fueling site that we’ve located, they already have building permits for three nuclear reactors,” Ellison said. “These are the small modular nuclear reactors that power the data center. That’s how crazy it gets. Here’s what’s happening.”

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 power demand grows from data centers, manufacturing and the wider electrification of the economy.

These reactors are generally 300 megawatts or less, about one-third the size of a typical reactor in the current US fleet. They would be prefabricated in several pieces and then assembled on site, reducing the capital costs that hinder larger plants.

Currently, small modular reactors are a technology of the future, with nuclear industry executives generally agreeing that they will not be commercialized in the US until the 2030s.

Three small modular reactors are currently operational in the world, according to the Nuclear Energy Agency. Two are in China and Russia, the US’s central geopolitical adversaries.A test reactor is also operational in Japan.