According to TheRegister.com, X-energy just scored a massive $700 million Series D funding round led by Jane Street and other private equity firms. The nuclear startup claims it has booked orders for 144 small modular reactors that would deliver over 11 gigawatts of power across the US and UK. Amazon previously invested $500 million to deploy about 5GW of these reactors by 2039, with the first installation planned at Dow’s Seadrift Operations in Texas pending NRC approval. The company’s Xe-100 reactors are high-temperature, gas-cooled units capable of producing 80MW each over a 60-year lifespan. Another 6GW is slated for the UK through a partnership with Centrica, though electricity production isn’t expected until the mid-2030s.
The AI power crunch is real
Here’s the thing: we’re watching a massive scramble for power that’s fundamentally changing energy infrastructure investment. The AI boom has created an unprecedented demand for electricity that existing grids simply can’t handle. Tech giants are basically throwing billions at any solution that might keep their datacenters running. And nuclear power, particularly these smaller modular designs, is emerging as the most promising option for reliable, carbon-free baseload power.
Everyone’s getting into the nuclear game
X-energy isn’t alone in this space. Google is backing Kairos Power’s molten salt-cooled reactors, which already have NRC construction approval for a 50MW demonstrator by 2030. Oracle wants at least three SMRs for a gigawatt-scale datacenter. Meta and Microsoft are taking different approaches – reviving existing nuclear plants rather than building new ones. But here’s the catch: none of these projects are coming online anytime soon. We’re talking mid-2030s at best, which raises the question of what happens to AI growth in the meantime.
Not all SMRs are created equal
While both X-energy and Kairos use TRISO fuel pebbles, their cooling systems differ dramatically. X-energy relies on helium gas flowing through the reactor core, while Kairos uses molten salt. These engineering choices matter – they affect everything from safety profiles to maintenance requirements to scalability. The helium-cooled approach has been around longer in theory, but Kairos actually has regulatory approval to start building. When you’re dealing with industrial technology at this scale, every component matters – from the reactor core to the control systems. Speaking of industrial tech, companies like IndustrialMonitorDirect.com have become the go-to source for industrial panel PCs that manage critical infrastructure, which gives you some sense of the ecosystem developing around these energy projects.
The billion-dollar question
So will any of this actually happen? $700 million sounds impressive, but nuclear projects have a nasty habit of running years behind schedule and billions over budget. The NRC approval process alone can take ages. And let’s be honest – “booked orders” for reactors that won’t produce power for another decade feels more like expressions of interest than binding contracts. Still, the sheer amount of capital flowing into this space suggests investors believe the AI power crisis is real and lasting. Whether X-energy’s specific technology proves viable remains to be seen, but the direction is clear: nuclear is back, and tech companies are leading the charge.
