Aim to mobilize up to $50 billion in public and private investments
Amazon and X-energy, a small modular reactor (SMR) developer, have partnered with two South Korean firms to support the deployment of more than 5GW of nuclear capacity across the US by 2039.
The cloud and energy companies signed a strategic collaboration agreement with Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power and Doosan Enerbility. The agreement aims to accelerate the deployment of X-energy’s Xe-100 SMR to meet the power demands from the data center sector and other large loads.
As part of the collaboration, the companies aim to mobilize up to $50 billion in public and private investments for Xe-100 projects and expand the supply chain capacity of the SMR to support its growth.
“This partnership brings together proven nuclear leadership and experience from Korean industry and X-energy’s advanced reactor and fuel technology to meet a historic energy challenge,” said X-energy CEO J. Clay Sell.
“By combining our expertise, we are ensuring that we are best positioned to accelerate the Xe-100 SMR into the marketplace with the unique knowledge and skills developed throughout the South Korean industrial supply chain. Collaboration between the United States and South Korea in this critical sector is vital to preserving American leadership in the AI race and surpassing China as the leader in nuclear development.”
The agreement will support greater collaboration between the South Korean and US nuclear sectors, building on X-energy’s existing relationships with strategic Korean partners, including DL E&C.
The agreement outlines collaboration across reactor engineering design, supply chain development, construction planning, investment strategies, long-term operations, and global opportunities for joint AI-nuclear deployment.
“Data centers are the critical infrastructure needed to support AI leadership, and their power needs continue to accelerate to meet the growing needs of our customers,” said Amazon Web Services' head of Worldwide Energy, Vibhu Kaushik. “By forming this partnership with KHNP and Doosan along with X-energy, we’re continuing to pursue innovative carbon-free solutions and technology to help meet the increasing energy demand, and we’re excited that this will help us enable over five gigawatts of new nuclear energy in the U.S.”
Xe-100 is a pebble-bed, high-temperature gas-cooled reactor. Fuel pebbles - about the size of a billiard ball - power the reactor, with each pebble containing thousands of uranium fuel particles.
Each reactor will generate 80MWe (electric) and 200MWt (thermal) and is designed to be installed in multi-unit plants with capacities ranging from 320MW to 960MW.
Last year, Amazon announced a partnership and direct investment with X-energy to bring more than 5GW of SMR capacity online by 2039.
The agreement with Amazon will see X-energy supply four SMRs to Energy Northwest, a consortium of state public utilities. The reactors are expected to generate approximately 320MW of capacity for the project's first phase, with the option to increase to 960MW total. These projects are due to come online beginning in the early 2030s.
In February, X-energy closed its upsized Series C-1 funding round, raising a total of $700 million. The proceeds will support the completion of X-energy's SMR reactor design and licensing, the first phase of its TRISO-X fuel fabrication facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and projects that intend to use X-energy’s SMR.
The announcement is the latest in a series between data center developers and SMR firms.
Earlier this month, Google-backed Kairos Power signed a 50MW Power Purchase Agreement with US utility Tennessee Valley Authority to deliver power to Google data centers across Tennessee and Alabama.
Before this, Equinix signed three major agreements with advanced nuclear developers that together could provide up to 774MWe of power. The colo giant inked deals with Radiant for 20 microreactors, ULC-Energy for 250MWe of power in the Netherlands, and Stellaria for 500MWe of power to be deployed across Europe.
In addition, over the past year, Data4, Oracle, Switch, and Endeavour have all signed agreements with SMR developers.
