More than $1.2 billion poured into nuclear startup X-energy in under two years, fueled by Silicon Valley’s race to meet AI's soaring electricity demands. Investors from Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund to OpenAI’s Sam Altman are betting on small modular reactors, or SMRs, as the answer to power-hungry data centers pushing current grids to their limits.
These compact reactors promise quicker, factory-built solutions compared to traditional nuclear plants that take decades to construct. TerraPower, co-founded by Bill Gates, raised $650 million with support from NVIDIA’s venture arm, while Oklo secured a partnership with Meta to develop a 1.2-gigawatt campus in Ohio and is preparing for a public listing.
Google also jumped into the fray, striking a deal with Kairos Power to deploy 500 megawatts of advanced nuclear capacity by 2035. However, these figures still pale in comparison to the more than $100 billion Big Tech annually spends on data center infrastructure.
The U.S. Department of Energy has set a July 4, 2026 target for some startups to reach reactor criticality, the milestone when a nuclear reactor sustains a controlled chain reaction. Aalo Atomics is among those aiming for this landmark date, underscoring the urgency behind this new wave of energy ventures.
