The key facts

  • Amazon is financing a 960 MW nuclear plant with 12 X-energy Xe-100 reactors at the site of a demolished coal plant near Terre Haute, Indiana; the operator is AEP.
  • This is the second commercial agreement between Amazon and X-energy, three times larger than the first; the companies aim for 5 GW of new nuclear capacity in the US by 2039.
  • Timelines depend on X-energy's first project in Seadrift, Texas, over which the state of Texas has filed a lawsuit alleging 'habitual noncompliance' with water and waste regulations.

The Indiana deal

Amazon is financing the development of a planned 960 MW nuclear power plant in Indiana and will become the first buyer of its energy, the companies said on Monday. The plant will be operated by the utility American Electric Power (AEP), and the reactors will be supplied by X-energy, a developer of small modular reactors that went public in April. The plant of 12 Xe-100 reactors will be located at the site of a demolished coal power plant south of Terre Haute. This is the second commercial agreement between Amazon and X-energy, and it is three times larger than the first, announced two years earlier.

Investments and plans

Amazon has already invested in X-energy, leading a $700 million Series C-1 round in October 2024. The companies said they ultimately plan to build 5 GW of new nuclear generating capacity in the US by 2039. Unlike many recently announced power plants, these reactors will be connected to the public power grid, although, according to Amazon, the energy will also power its data centers.

Risks and the Texas project

The ambitious timelines depend on whether X-energy can complete its first plant at a Dow Chemical facility southeast of Houston, Texas. The Seadrift site was recently at the center of a lawsuit filed by the state of Texas, which accuses the facility of 'habitual noncompliance' with water and solid waste regulations and permits. X-energy has not yet begun construction at Seadrift, where four Xe-100 reactors will be installed to supply the chemical plant with heat and electricity. The company said its construction permit is in the final stages of review by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission.

Industry context and shares

Startups and major cloud companies are betting that small modular reactors will help the nuclear industry break out of stagnation: the most recently built US nuclear plants suffered from serious budget overruns and schedule delays. Companies like X-energy hope that serial production will keep costs and schedules on track, although, according to experts, the effects of mass production usually only appear after about a decade. X-energy debuted on Nasdaq in April with an offering price of $23 per share; on the first day of trading the price rose 27%, but since then the shares have lost almost two-thirds of their value. News of the Amazon deal lifted the stock by about 10% in premarket trading, though at the time of publication they were down by less than 2%.