Nuclear Energy Takes Centre Stage: Powering the AI and Economic Surge
Nuclear energy had a prime spot at Abu Dhabi Finance Week, underscoring its pivotal role in the evolving global energy and finance landscape. World Nuclear Association's Director General, Dr Sama Bilbao y León, represented and advocated for the nuclear industry to a senior finance and business audience at a standing-room-only CNBC’s New Energy Finance event, and contributed to several private roundtables and conversations.
The discussion, "Reality of Renewables in an AI World," moderated by Steve Sedgwick, featured Dr Bilbao y León alongside Mohamed Jameel Al Ramahi, Chief Executive Officer of Masdar. The central theme explored how the explosive growth of Artificial Intelligence (AI) is transforming energy and infrastructure, necessitating a massive reallocation of capital to build the power and data centre capacity to sustain it.
The AI Energy Surge and the Grid Challenge
The consensus was clear: the surge in AI-driven electricity demand has crystallized and brought forward existing energy problems, including grid overload, utility bill affordability, and the fundamental need for "clean joules." The world requires substantially more clean energy to grow in an economically sustainable way.
Dr Bilbao y León stressed that the demand isn't just AI; the entire industrial economy needs reliable decarbonization, which nuclear energy is uniquely positioned to offer.
> Grid Overload and Affordability: Strong energy demand growth, 3-4% per annum or higher, is a relatively new challenge for advanced markets but a persistent issue in developing economies.
> Insufficient Existing Solutions: Current policies are heavily reliant on renewable energy (RE), which cannot alone solve the complex challenge of providing a reliable and clean grid, affordable utility bills, and economic development simultaneously.
> Nuclear's Intrinsic Value: Nuclear is experiencing a resurgence because of its core attributes—reliability, longevity, energy density, and its role in the clean energy transition. This leads to crucial second-order benefits like attracting energy-intensive industrial investments, and low land usage and protection of ecosystems. In addition, nuclear energy also helps attaining several policy and societal goals at once, from affordability and access, to lowering emissions and energy security.
Beyond Silver Bullets: Building the Full Clean Energy Toolbox
Dr Bilbao y León asserted that meeting the demand for affordable, 24/7 clean energy to fuel the AI era and global prosperity is a formidable equation. A complex equation that does not have a unique simple solution that fits all.
AI growth, much like economic growth, cannot be powered by renewables and grid-scale storage alone. The challenge is far bigger: it requires us to think in terms of the entire system. Yes, we will need vast amounts of new generation, but that is only one piece of the puzzle. Equally critical is the enormous investment required to modernize and expand the electric grid — an essential backbone of our economy that has been neglected for decades.
At the same time, we must look beyond hardware to the markets that drive the system. Across jurisdictions, work is underway to design market structures that properly value every element of a resilient, low-carbon energy mix: generation, capacity, 24/7 availability, inertia, voltage, frequency, stability, reliability, resilience, and of course carbon reduction. These signals are vital — they incentivize long-term planning and investment not only by utilities, but also by large energy users, ultimately ensuring affordable power for households and businesses alike.
For policymakers, the task is clear: consider the system in its entirety. Develop policies and industrial strategies that send unmistakable signals to the private sector and lay out a credible long-term roadmap. With that foundation, financiers and industry leaders can step forward with confidence, seizing what is, in truth, a once-in-a-generation opportunity to build a clean energy system that is resilient, future-proof, and ready to power the AI revolution.
We must acknowledge that there is no single silver bullet for the energy challenge — every tool in the toolbox has a vital role to play. Among them, nuclear power already stands as a proven pillar of reliable, carbon-free electricity. Yet to truly meet the demands of a clean, resilient future, the world will need far more nuclear capacity than what exists today.
Crucially, hyperscalers (large tech companies), operating on a global model, are increasingly interested in nuclear because reactors provide scale to deliver their full economic benefits. They are seeking long-term power availability and grid reliability, evidenced by efficient and promising nuclear partnerships in the US. These tech giants are adopting “fleet views”, making significant unprecedented commitments to support nuclear scaling. They have understood the economic benefits that nuclear power offers both their supply and investment portfolios. These agreements are more than just long term economic commitments to nuclear power by some of the world’s leading companies - they are new demand-led commercial partnerships, and the basis for rapid industry growth.
World Nuclear Association advocates to move away from incrementalism to scaled nuclear, including both large reactors and innovations like Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and Advanced Reactors (ARs).
National Strategies and the Financial Shift
The discussion moved to national strategies, where the Association highlighted the intersection of economic growth and energy security.
Nuclear partnerships are built to last for decades—possibly even 100 years—offering a compounding benefit as host countries develop nuclear skills and supply chain capacities. This ensures that countries can continue to build and rely on their domestic capabilities and resources to provide reliable, clean power at scale.
Nuclear energy costs are de-correlated from fossil fuel cycles and weather patterns, offering a powerful engine for sustained economic growth without commodity volatility.
We need to demystify nuclear and challenge the notion that nuclear projects are currently too challenging or are the eminent domain of government or that we need NOAK projects before mainstream finance can participate. Dr Bilbao y León argued there is nothing inherently unique in nuclear projects that make them infinitely more difficult to finance or execute than other types. Like any other class of complex capital-intensive infrastructure with high initial investment, long lifecycles, and a positive social and economic development not just because of the energy it generates but also through the jobs it creates and sustains, it is necessary to strike a balance between government instruments and market support.
Building massive, capital-intensive infrastructure with intangible social value is nothing new — and the financial community has long mastered the art of structuring win‑win partnerships to make it happen. Nuclear projects face the same challenges as any other large-scale development: market risk, construction risk, and the hurdle of securing initial funding. These are real risks, but they are not “nuclear risks.”
2025: The Year of Nuclear Finance
The finance sector's commitment to nuclear reached a new level in 2025:
> World Bank Policy Shift: The Association hailed a "momentous shift" as the World Bank's changed its lending policies allowing financing for nuclear energy projects, including new developments, securing operating extensions for existing reactors, and grid upgrades. This is a strong signal for other multilateral development banks and the global finance community, and it supports the estimated $150 billion annual investment opportunity required to meet the 2050 tripling goal.
> Africa Energy Week (AEW 2025): Nuclear was positioned as central to unlocking long-term capital for Africa's clean energy transition, with bold statements from both governments and various African development banks and a focus on strong governance and public-private partnerships.
> Asia Development Bank Shift: The multilateral development bank has amended its energy policy, paving the way for it to support developing member countries that choose to pursue nuclear power. Across Asia there are more than 300 reactors under construction, planned and proposed.
> COP30 in Belém: World Nuclear Association announced the expansion of its coalition supporting the tripling of global nuclear energy capacity by 2050, with new financial institutions like Stifel and CIBC joining the Financial Institutions Statement of Support.
To achieve financial readiness, investors need to understand and be comfortable with the benefits, costs, and risks of nuclear projects, and how these flow through the life cycle of the asset. The best way to achieve this is through revenue and finance models that help capture, monetize, and allocate these elements (well-known and fact-based, systemic benefits, costs, and risks) and shows how risks and returns change over time.
To address some of the lack of clarity and understanding around financing nuclear, World Nuclear Association is focusing on the "financing supply chain," launching the Financing Nuclear Briefing Series (FNBS) to improve knowledge and dialogue among governments, multilateral development banks, financiers, and the nuclear industry. The aim is to ensure competitive nuclear projects achieve a timely Final Investment Decision (FID).
Strengthening the Bonds between Finance and Nuclear
As the industry looks ahead to 2026, the focus remains on deepening financial and nuclear engagement, including developing an Investment Guide, co-created by the nuclear and financial communities, which we hope will further deepen collaboration and – ultimately - investment in the scaled nuclear solutions required for the future.
World Nuclear Association’s regular Financing Nuclear Briefing Series will continue to be a major forum for these high-level conversations and another way for the Association to support our members as they navigate the evolving nuclear finance landscape.
In 2026, the Association will once again host the Finance Summit at its unique, global annual gathering of the nuclear industry: World Nuclear Symposium, taking place in London from 9-11 September. For the financial community, the Summit and World Nuclear Symposium provide an unparalleled stocktake of the opportunities across the global nuclear value chain.
