Amazon funds 12-reactor nuclear project with X-energy

Amazon is funding development of a proposed 960-megawatt nuclear plant in Indiana and would be its first electricity customer, the companies announced Monday.

American Electric Power (AEP) would operate the plant, while X-energy would supply 12 Xe-100 small modular reactors. The plant would occupy the site of a demolished coal-fired power station south of Terre Haute.

The agreement is the second commercial deal between Amazon and X-energy and is three times larger than their first, announced two years ago.

The Indiana reactors would connect to the public electric grid, unlike many recently announced power plants. Amazon said the electricity would also serve its data centers.

Amazon led X-energy’s $700 million Series C-1 investment round in October 2024. The two companies have said they plan to build 5 gigawatts of new nuclear generating capacity in the United States by 2039.

The project’s timeline depends on X-energy successfully delivering its first power plant at Dow Chemical’s Seadrift site, southeast of Houston, Texas. X-energy has not yet broken ground there.

The Seadrift project would use four Xe-100 reactors to supply heat and electricity to Dow’s chemical plant. X-energy said the construction permit is in the final stages of review by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Texas has filed a lawsuit against the Seadrift chemical plant, alleging “habitual non-compliance” with water and solid-waste regulations and permits.

Startups and major cloud-computing companies are betting that small modular reactors, including X-energy’s designs, can help revive the nuclear industry. The most recent nuclear power plants built in the United States experienced major budget overruns and schedule delays.

X-energy and similar companies aim to control costs and keep construction on schedule by using smaller reactors and mass manufacturing. Experts say mass manufacturing often takes about a decade to begin delivering benefits.

X-energy went public on Nasdaq in April through an initial public offering priced at $23 per share. Investor enthusiasm drove the stock up 27% on its first trading day, but shares have since fallen by nearly two-thirds.

News of the Amazon agreement lifted X-energy shares about 10% in premarket trading, though they were down less than 2% at the time of publication.

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