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NextEra Energy and Google Cloud have announced a major expansion of their long-running partnership, unveiling plans to jointly develop multiple gigawatt scale data center campuses across the United States. The initiative aims to address the rapidly growing energy demands of hyperscale computing, artificial intelligence and cloud infrastructure.
The new agreement builds on an existing portfolio between the two companies that already includes around 3.5 gigawatts of power capacity either operating or under contract. With data center demand accelerating nationwide, the expanded collaboration reflects a broader shift toward integrated energy and technology planning at unprecedented scale.
“Most recently, the companies announced the restart of the Duane Arnold Energy Center in Iowa followed by two new long-term power purchase agreements to add 600 megawatts of clean energy capacity to Oklahoma’s electricity grid to support Google’s technology infrastructure,” noted a press release.
As part of the effort, NextEra Energy and Google Cloud recently finalized agreements to add 600 megawatts of clean energy capacity to Oklahoma’s electricity grid. This additional generation is intended to directly support Google’s expanding technology infrastructure while strengthening regional grid reliability.
The companies confirmed that development is already underway for the first three data center campuses under the new agreement. They are targeting mid 2026 for the launch of the first commercial technology product tied to the partnership on the Google Cloud Marketplace.
A core focus of the collaboration is accelerating data center deployment by tackling infrastructure bottlenecks that often slow large scale projects. These include land acquisition, grid interconnection, load management and the parallel development of power generation assets required to sustain energy intensive AI workloads.
Nuclear power has emerged as a central pillar of this strategy. NextEra Energy recently announced plans to restart the Duane Arnold Energy Center in Iowa, a nuclear facility that was previously shut down. The company has formally asked the US Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to restore grid interconnection rights for the plant, reversing an earlier plan to convert the site to solar generation.
The request follows a licensing change submitted to the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission earlier this year, signaling a deliberate shift back toward nuclear baseload power to meet continuous demand from data centers and advanced computing operations.
Beyond physical infrastructure, the partnership also includes a digital transformation of NextEra Energy’s operations using Google Cloud’s artificial intelligence tools. These include the TimesFM 2.5 time series forecasting model and the WeatherNext 2 weather prediction system, which will be combined with NextEra’s proprietary asset data to improve grid planning, reliability and resilience.
Executives from both companies described the partnership as a response to the growing convergence of energy and technology. NextEra Energy Chairman and CEO John Ketchum said the collaboration reflects the need to build infrastructure at scale while fundamentally rethinking how energy systems operate.
Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian added that pairing AI infrastructure with deep energy expertise is essential to meeting the future demands of digital and AI driven economies.
