Cloud computing giants Amazon and Google are pouring investments into advanced nuclear reactors that could help power data center growth and give a critical boost to the nascent energy technology.
Amazon and Dominion Energy announced Wednesday they would jointly explore a 300-megawatt small modular reactor (SMR) project close to an existing nuclear station in Louisa County, Virginia, near the largest clusters of data centers in the United States.
The Dominion project was part of a package of SMR investments that Amazon rolled out. Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund was the anchor investor in a new $500 million package secured by X-energy, a Rockville, Maryland, nuclear startup. The cloud and e-commerce company is also teaming up with X-energy to develop four small reactor projects for Energy Northwest, a group of public utilities in Washington state.
Amazon said the nuclear projects could supply 5,000 MW or more of power by the end of the 2030s.
