Artificial-intelligence training and high-density cloud workloads have redrawn North America’s data-center map. Atlanta, long a secondary market behind Northern Virginia, finished 2024 with 705 megawatts of net absorption—tops among all primary markets.

Vacancy in the region now hovers below 2 percent, and developers are scouring every industrial parcel within two-hour drive times of major transmission lines.

Demand shows no sign of easing. The International Energy Agency projects that global data-center electricity use will more than double to about 945 terawatt-hours by 2030, driven largely by AI.

Georgia Power’s latest Integrated Resource Plan adds local color: the utility forecasts roughly 9 gigawatts of new generation by 2031—80 percent of it to serve large-load customers such as hyperscale campuses.
georgiapower.com

Renewables meet sustainability goals but can’t guarantee 24/7 uptime for graphics-processing clusters. That is where nuclear energy is regaining traction. Georgia’s Vogtle Units 3 and 4—America’s first new reactors this century—delivered 2.2 gigawatts of carbon-free capacity in 2023-24.

With production tax credits now available for advanced nuclear, utilities across the Southeast are evaluating small modular reactors (SMRs) that can nestle 100–500 MW units close to data parks. Google’s 2024 clean-energy agreement with Kairos Power signaled the first commercial SMR off-take of its kind.

For operators, nuclear pairing offers two strategic wins:

1. Round-the-clock, carbon-free megawatts that satisfy Scope 2 decarbonization targets without diesel back-up overbuilds.
2. Predictable wholesale pricing tied to fuel costs measured in years, not the hourly swings of natural-gas markets.

Yet tapping those electrons is not a matter of stringing a bigger feeder to the server hall. It is a mechanical-engineering challenge that starts at the plant gate and ends in the hot aisle.

Long before a kilowatt reaches a server, mechanical contractors transform those raw electrons into usable, reliable power and cooling. At Midsouth Mechanical, a Columbus-based firm that cut its teeth welding boiler tubes and installing process piping for heavy industry, the pivot to digital infrastructure feels surprisingly familiar.

1. High-Capacity Busway and Switchgear Integration
AI racks now draw 30–80 kW per cabinet, an order of magnitude above legacy loads. Moving that current from a nuclear-fed substation into white space requires:

• Medium-voltage switchgear skids (15–35 kV) built and factory-tested off-site, then crane-set in hours rather than weeks.
• Isolated-phase bus-duct rated up to 6,000 amps, threaded through fire-rated shafts that also accommodate chilled-water risers.
• Vibration isolation and seismic bracing that meet the same ASME and NRC criteria applied to nuclear balance-of-plant systems.

Co-designing electrical and mechanical pathways early keeps impedance losses low and prevents last-minute clashes between pipe spools and cable trays.

2. Chilled-Water Systems Optimized for Nuclear Baseload
Reactor output is famously steady, allowing operators to raise supply-water temperatures from 45 °F (7 °C) to about 52 °F (11 °C) without risking thermal throttling. The higher setpoint unlocks:

• Thousands of free-cooling hours in Georgia’s shoulder seasons; compressors idle while adiabatic dry coolers do the work.
• Lower water consumption versus traditional evaporative towers—critical in drought-prone Southern counties.
• Reduced pump energy because flow can be modulated rather than run flat-out against low delta-T.

Mechanical contractors prefabricate modular chiller skids and 12-inch stainless-steel headers in shop conditions, then make flange-to-flange field connections that cut installation time and on-site weld inspection.

3. Retrofitting Legacy Colocation Halls
Plenty of floor space still hides inside older buildings with 24-inch raised floors and 75 psf load ratings. Bringing them into the AI era involves:

• Replacing 30 kW CRACs with 80 kW chilled-water CRAHs tied to a new loop.
• Adding rear-door heat exchangers that remove up to 70 percent of rack heat before it escapes into the room.
• Upgrading slab support with carbon-fiber plate stiffeners so heavier skids and battery cabinets can roll in without demolition.
• Installing dual-purpose HVAC for battery rooms that must both purge hydrogen and carry inverter heat.

The best projects phase work so tenants never lose uptime—another reason mechanical sequencing matters as much as mechanical design.

4. Utility Tie-Ins and SMR Interfaces
Connecting directly to existing reactors—or future SMR pads—imposes nuclear-grade rigor on pipe and power:

• ASME Section III‐qualified welders document every joint; radiographic tests trace lineages for decades.
• Neutral-grounding resistors and vacuum breakers allow the data center to “island” within four electrical cycles if the external grid trips.
• Underground chilled-water supply and return often share trenches with 230 kV duct banks; correct spacing prevents thermal creep that could derate conductors.

Mechanical teams fluent in utility standards can shave months off interconnection studies by furnishing one-line diagrams and hydraulic models that satisfy both the reactor operator and the transmission owner.

5. Prefabrication and Schedule Compression
Speed to market is revenue. Prefabricating 60–70 percent of pipe spools, skid frames, and support steel:

• Cuts field labor head-count nearly in half, a key safety gain on congested sites.
• Reduces weather-related delays in Georgia’s storm-prone summers.
• Enables parallel workflows—equipment is built while foundations cure—shaving entire calendar quarters off commissioning.

Developers that award projects on Total Installed Cost rather than bid rate often find prefab efficiency offsets what might look like higher shop rates on paper.

6. ESG and Operating-Cost Benefits
Pairing nuclear power with efficient mechanical balance-of-plant delivers measurable sustainability wins:

• A hypothetical 300 MW campus on Georgia’s current grid mix emits roughly 1.3 million t CO₂ annually in Scope 2. Shifting the same load to Vogtle electrons can drop that to ≈100,000 t CO₂, an order-of-magnitude improvement.
• Elevated chilled-water temperatures increase plant Coefficient of Performance (COP) and lower annualized PUE, cutting both carbon and utility bills.
• Adiabatic dry-cooling designs can save millions of gallons of water per year, alleviating pressure on municipal supplies.

Regulators and hyperscale tenants alike now track these metrics in procurement scoring, so mechanical decisions translate directly into contract wins.

Audit Future Density – Forecast rack-level power through 2030; design electrical and mechanical infrastructure once, oversize wisely.

Engage Utilities Early – Interconnection queues for large loads are measured in years; align site selection with 115 kV or 230 kV corridors and available nuclear PPAs.

Demand Prefab Methodologie – Ask bidders for shop-versus-field labor ratios and documented schedule gains.

Link Cooling Strategy to ESG Targets – Higher water temperatures, adiabatic coolers, and water-free condensers can all support corporate sustainability reporting.

Verify Nuclear-Code Capability – Ensure your mechanical contractor carries current ASME Section III qualifications and has experience submitting NQA-1 documentation.

Georgia’s emerging blend of abundant nuclear baseload and explosive data-center demand presents a once-in-a-generation build cycle. But the low-carbon promise of Vogtle or future SMRs is only realized when electrons and chilled water meet servers with precision, safety, and speed. That intersection is the domain of experienced mechanical contractors—teams that can weld to nuclear codes on Monday, set a 100 MVA switchgear skid on Tuesday, and commission a modular chiller plant before quarter-end.

Selecting a partner with deep Southeastern roots, proven prefabrication workflows, and utility-grade QA/QC can shorten time-to-revenue, lower operating cost, and future-proof your campus against the next leap in AI power density. If your roadmap includes Georgia or the broader Southeast, now is the moment to lock in mechanical expertise before the reactor-driven construction wave crests.