Google commits to buying power generated by nuclear-energy startup Kairos Power

It’s not real funding, it’s a power purchase agreement from something that may never be built! No different from Microsoft’s previous fusion power purchase agreement. The Goog may as well announce they’ve reserved office space in a building to be built on Proxima Centauri B.

Just tech virtue signalling: Google/Microsoft trade the impression that they’re relevant leaders for some legitimacy for a blue sky startup.

A power purchase agreement is critical to getting investment. The US aviation industry is wouldn’t exist if not for the UK and French governments making a purchase agreement for planes at the start of WW2

Insurance and regulatory hurdles are far higher than contracts selling future electricity customer purchase agreements and likely to doom almost all new nuclear projects in the US as they have for the past 50 years. I don't see why an amoral customer would care about the specific source power as long as it's cheapest, but even a socially-conscious customer would probably be okay with renewables if and when they are generally the cheapest option. Perhaps there are a handful of specific datacenter locations and requirements in particular areas that would be better suited to geothermal or nuclear.