WASHINGTON, June 4 (Reuters) - President Joe Biden's

administration is asking big technology companies to invest in

new climate-friendly power generation to cover their surging

demand, U.S. Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm told Reuters.

The talks come as a surprising surge in electricity demand

has been driven by the adoption of technologies like generative

artificial intelligence that require power-hungry data centers.

This development could complicate Biden's target of

decarbonizing the power sector by 2035 to fight climate change.

"We've been talking with data companies. The large ones have

commitments to net-zero and would like to see clean baseload

power," Granholm said in an interview with Reuters.

She said the administration had discussed the possibility

that companies could band together to make use of small modular

reactors for nuclear energy, and could simultaneously place

orders to reduce costs.

"If the tech companies are coming in and are going to pull

clean power from the grid, they should bring the power with

them," she said.

"And so a lot of that conversation is happening right now

among tech companies and utilities, tech companies and nuclear

companies."

She did not name any of the companies involved.

Data centers could use up to 9% of total electricity

generated in the U.S. by the end of the decade, more than

doubling their current consumption, the Electric Power Research

Institute said in a report last week.

NuScale, the only small modular reactor company with a

license to build from U.S. regulators, had to cancel its only

project last year at the Energy Department's Idaho National

Laboratory.

Granholm said the NuScale did not have sufficient

agreements to buy power from the project. "That's a lesson: If

you're going to have new nuclear you have to have clear offtake

of the power," Granholm said.

The White House last week announced new measures to spur

development of new U.S. nuclear power plants, a large potential

source of carbon-free electricity the government says is needed

to combat climate change. But no new U.S. nuclear plants are

currently being built.

The youngest U.S. nuclear power reactors, at the Vogtle

plant in Georgia, were years behind schedule and billions over

budget when they entered commercial operation in 2023 and 2024.

Granholm said tech companies were also looking into other

clean energy technologies, including geothermal.

(Additional reporting by Nichola Groom, David Shepardson, and

Richard Valdmanis; Editing by David Gregorio)