By MICHAEL FISCH
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winter 2026
The lights were off in the Tokyo office of Japan’s energy minister. It was 2022, a crushing heat wave was threatening to collapse the grid, and the government had urged citizens to conserve every watt of electricity they could. For Amy Roma, JD ’03, sitting in that darkened room was more than uncomfortable—it was a glimpse of a crisis spreading across the globe.
“Providing electricity to people is a necessary precondition to allow them to raise their standard of living,” says Roma, a partner at Hogan Lovells and one of the world’s leading authorities on nuclear energy law. It’s a crisis she’s spent two decades preparing to solve, though she never could have predicted the twist that would make her expertise more urgent than ever: artificial intelligence.
Goldman Sachs forecasts that AI could drive a 165% increase in global power demand for data centers by 2030. Tech giants like Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Meta are scrambling to secure dedicated energy sources for their data centers, increasingly turning to nuclear power.
“The biggest impact AI is going to have is that it requires data centers, and data centers need immense amounts of energy,” Roma explains. “We do not have enough energy for the data centers we need to remain competitive in AI.”
Roma has become a go-to attorney for companies navigating the complex intersection of cutting-edge technology and nuclear regulation. In 2023, she negotiated the world’s first fusion-energy purchase agreement—a deal committing Helion Energy to deliver electricity to Microsoft by 2028. While prototype fusion reactors have demonstrated the feasibility of fusion, the energy produced so far has been modest and not at a commercial scale. The Microsoft deal was a bet on the future of clean energy.
Roma’s path to this rarefied expertise began with what she describes as a random choice. After graduating from Suffolk Law in 2003, she was on track for a career at a large firm. “I realized, ‘I am bored out of my mind, and I do not want to do this for the rest of my life,’” she says. Instead, she took a chance and joined the Nuclear Regulatory Commission—“because I met somebody who was cool from there during my interviews.”
That leap of faith launched an extraordinary career. Roma became an expert in traditional nuclear fission before moving into the emerging field of fusion energy. Unlike fission, which splits heavy atoms, fusion fuses lighter elements together, producing less radioactive waste, eliminating meltdown risk, and creating by-products that can’t be weaponized. Nuclear fusion could eventually provide a nearly limitless source of carbon-free energy, making it a potentially world-changing technology for long-term climate goals.
Her influence extends far beyond boardrooms. The Financial Times named her North America’s Most Innovative Lawyer in Technology in 2024. She has testified before Congress and addressed a White House fusion conference in 2022. But for Roma, the work has always been about more than legal innovation. Roughly 750 million people globally lack reliable access to electricity. Nuclear energy, she says, offers a path to changing that while meeting the explosive energy demands of AI and modern technology.
Twenty years after leaving Suffolk Law uncertain of her path, Roma has found herself at the center of one of the most consequential legal and technological challenges of our time.
“It’s always evolving,” she says of her work. “And that’s what makes it exciting—every step forward brings us closer to solving one of humanity’s biggest challenges.”
Amy Roma
Photography: Courtesy of Amy Roma
“There has been a lot of controversy over AI artwork. Could the AI system be included as an author in the work? Is this human creativity or not?”
Professor Darrell Mottley Faculty Director of the Intellectual Property & Entrepreneurship Clinic (IPEC)
Photography: Adobe
Her influence extends far beyond boardrooms. The Financial Times named her North America’s Most Innovative Lawyer in Technology in 2024. She has testified before Congress and addressed a White House fusion conference in 2022. But for Roma, the work has always been about more than legal innovation. Roughly 750 million people globally lack reliable access to electricity. Nuclear energy, she says, offers a path to changing that while meeting the explosive energy demands of AI and modern technology.
Twenty years after leaving Suffolk Law uncertain of her path, Roma has found herself at the center of one of the most consequential legal and technological challenges of our time.
“It’s always evolving,” she says of her work. “And that’s what makes it exciting—every step forward brings us closer to solving one of humanity’s biggest challenges.”
law of technology
By Robert Schlesinger