Artificial Intelligence has sent a demand to touch power in the US after almost zero increase. This has scrambled large technical companies to secure the capacity generated for its data centers.
For many people, this means turning to nuclear fragmentation. Power source has been experiencing resurrection after the closure of plants over the years. (Fundament, is used in all current atomic plants, is different from fusion, still experimental approach to receive electricity from atoms, which do not produce more power than yet consumed, attracting investors, attracting investors.)
For tech companies, a part of the appeal of fragmentation is a stable, approximate source of power that flows 24/7, which gives their data centers the ability to run computing load whenever they need it.
But another part of the appeal lies in new reactor designs that promise to remove the shortcomings of existing nuclear power plants. While old power plants were built around large -scale reactors that could generate 1 gW power generation, new small modular reactors (SMR) design see multiple modules to meet many needs deployed with each other.
SMRs rely on mass manufacturing to reduce costs, but to date, no one has still built one in the US, which has not kept Amazon, Google, Meta and Microsoft away from the table. They have either signed or invested directly in them to buy electricity from nuclear startups – or both.
Here are nuclear fission startup supported by Big Tech.
Careros power
Kyaros Power received a vote of confidence from Google when the search giant promised to buy about 500 MW of power by 2035, with the first reactor to come online by 2030.
The company’s small modular reactors rely on melted fluoride salt for cooling and transport heat into steam turbines. The high boiling point of salt means that the coolant does not need to be kept under high pressure, which should improve operating security. Reactors have fuel pebbles coated in carbon and ceramic shells, which must be strong enough to face a meltdown.
The Almeda-based startup received a $ 629 million prize from the US government, including $ 303 million from the Department of Energy. In November 2024, Cairo received approval from the US Atomic Regulatory Commission to start construction at two reactors in Tennessee. In 35 MW, the test units will be smaller than the final commercial reactors of the Cyros, which is expected to produce 75 MW in each.
Ok is hey
Oclo is another SMR company that targets the world of the data center – no surprise that it was supported by OpenEAI CEO Sam Altman, who also took a nuclear startup through reverse merger through his special objective acquisition vehicle, ALTC in July 2023. Ultman served as the chairman of Oklo by April, when he began talks for an energy supply to Openai. DCVC, Draper Associates, and Peter Theal’s Mithrail Capital Management Startups are among the previous investors.
Cold by liquid metal, the reactor of oclow is based on an existing American energy design, which aims to reduce the amount of nuclear waste that results in regular operation. Nevertheless, the path of Oklo is not a smooth. The company’s first license application was rejected in January 2022. Oclo has said that he will resume the application for some time in 2025. But it did not prevent the company from landing a deal to supply the data center operator switch with 12 gigawatts by 2044.
Salt
Like the kerose, Saltfoss, known as the east as ciborg, wants to form a SMR cooled by melted salt. But unlike Careos and others, it calls a power bargain to place two to eight of them on a ship. The startup has raised around $ 60 million, including $ 6 million seed round, which included the investment by Bill Gates, Peter Theal and Unity co-founder David Helgson, according to the pitchbook. Satlfoss has an agreement to manufacture ships and Satlfoss-designed reactors with Samsung heavy industries.
Terpower
Established by Bill Gates, Trapavar is creating a large reactor, called Natrium, cooled by liquid sodium and has molten salt energy storage.
The company broke the ground at the First Power Plant in Vyoming in June 2024. The Natrium design asks the reactor to generate 345 MW of electricity. It is smaller today than other new nuclear plants, but larger than most SMR designs.
But the Natrium has given a trick to its sleeve with its melted salt heat storage system. Since atomic reactors work best in a stable position, the Natrium reactor can continue to break atoms when the demand is low, and excess energy is stored as heat in a VAT of melted salt, which can later be drawn to generate electricity.
Investors include Gates’ Casked Investment Fund, Khosla Ventures, CRV and ArcelorMital.
X-energy
X -Energy last year led by Amazon’s climate pledge fund of $ 700 million C -1 of $ 700 million. At the same time, the SMR Startup announced two development agreements, which would look into the deployment of 300 MW new nuclear production capacity in Prashant Northwest and Virginia.
The company’s high temperatures, gas-cooled reactors deerred recent trends in the US and Europe, where the design has been closed in favor of other approaches. The company’s XE-100 reactor is expected to generate 80 MW power. The 200,000 billiard ball-shaped fuel of the helium gas reactor flows through “pebbles”, absorbing heat to spin a steam turbine.