Amazon Signs Agreements To Leverage Nuclear Energy For Data Centres

Amazon has taken a significant step in addressing its rising energy demands by signing three agreements to develop small modular reactors (SMRs), aiming to harness nuclear power to fuel its growing network of data centres.

The company on Wednesday said that it will support a feasibility study for an SMR project near a Northwest Energy site in Washington state, partnering with X-Energy to explore nuclear options. Under the deal, Amazon will have the right to purchase electricity from four SMR modules, with the possibility of expanding to eight, potentially generating 960 megawatts—enough to power more than 7,70,000 US homes.

The growth in demand for electricity from data centres, driven by artificial intelligence and other high-power computing technologies, has pushed Amazon and other tech giants to seek innovative energy solutions. US data centre power use is expected to triple by 2030, according to Goldman Sachs estimates, and traditional energy sources may struggle to keep up. Amazon’s SMR projects are part of a larger push by tech companies to explore nuclear power, which generates electricity without greenhouse gas emissions and has the potential to provide a long-term, sustainable energy source.

Amazon’s deal with X-Energy is part of a broader plan to bring more than 5 gigawatts of nuclear energy online in the US by 2039, which would mark the largest commercial deployment of SMRs to date. The company is also exploring another SMR project with Dominion Energy in Virginia, where energy demand is projected to rise by 85 per cent over the next 15 years. Despite these ambitious plans, SMRs remain unproven in the US, and no operational SMRs exist yet. Critics have questioned the high costs and the challenges of managing nuclear waste, for which the US still lacks a permanent disposal solution.

Amazon’s nuclear efforts align with moves by other tech firms, including Alphabet and Microsoft, which have recently signed agreements to develop nuclear power projects. Earlier this year, Google partnered with Kairos Power to deploy an SMR by 2030, while Microsoft teamed up with Constellation Energy to help revive a reactor at the Three Mile Island plant. Amazon also made headlines in March when it acquired a nuclear-powered data center from Talen Energy.

(Inputs from Reuters)