Swedish Nuclear Startup Blykalla Secures $50 Million to Power Data Centers with SMRs December 19, 2025 As the global data center industry grapples with soaring power demands and the urgent need for reliable, carbon-free energy, small modular reactors (SMRs) are emerging as a pivotal solution. In a significant move for the sector, Swedish SMR developer Blykalla has closed a $50 million (€42 million) financing round to accelerate its plans to deploy nuclear power specifically for digital infrastructure. The funding round, announced this week, was co-led by U.S.-based SMR firm Oklo, Swedish impact fund Norrsken Launcher, and Armada Investment AG. Oklo, which has itself signed several power offtake agreements with major data center operators including Equinix and Switch, brings strategic industry insight to the investment. Blykalla stated the capital will be used to scale testing and validation work at an advanced reactor test site near the Oskarshamn nuclear power station, progress the design and engineering of its first reactor units, and advance commercial and regulatory efforts to secure a deployment site. The company is developing the Sealer-55, a lead-cooled modular reactor with a 55-megawatt capacity designed for both electricity generation and industrial heat applications. This latest investment follows concrete steps to explore deployments in Sweden. In October, Blykalla joined a consortium with cloud developer evroc and nuclear services provider Studsvik to assess the feasibility of building Sweden's first nuclear-powered data center at Studsvik's licensed site in Nyköping. The partnership aims to evaluate the technical and commercial model for co-locating hyperscale capacity with an SMR. The deal underscores a growing trend of data center operators seeking long-term, clean power agreements with nuclear developers, particularly in Europe. Over the past year, firms like Equinix, Data4, and others have signed memoranda of understanding to offtake power from planned SMR projects in the Netherlands, France, and elsewhere. Blykalla's successful fundraise signals strong investor confidence in the alignment between next-generation nuclear technology and the mission-critical power needs of the data center industry, potentially paving the way for more resilient and sustainable energy infrastructure. Source: datacenterdynamics
Swedish Nuclear Startup Blykalla Secures $50 Million to Power Data Centers with SMRs
