Amazon announced on Monday that it will fund the development of a proposed 960-megawatt nuclear power plant in Indiana and serve as its first electricity customer. American Electric Power (AEP) will operate the facility, while X-energy—a designer of small modular reactors (SMRs) that went public this April—will supply the reactors.
The new plant will consist of 12 Xe-100 small modular reactors, located on the site of a decommissioned coal-fired power plant south of Terre Haute. This marks the second commercial agreement between Amazon and X-energy, with a scale three times larger than their initial deal announced two years ago.
Amazon has invested heavily in X-energy, leading a $700 million Series C-1 funding round in October 2024. The two companies have stated that they ultimately aim to develop 5 gigawatts of new nuclear generation capacity in the United States by 2039.
Unlike many other newly announced power projects, these reactors will be connected to the public power grid, though Amazon noted that the electricity will also be used to power its data centers.
The companies’ ambitious timeline hinges on X-energy’s ability to successfully deliver its first plant at a Dow Chemical facility southeast of Houston, Texas. Known as the “Seadrift” project, the site has recently become the subject of a lawsuit filed by the state of Texas, which alleges “repeated violations” of regulations and permits concerning water and solid waste management.
X-energy has yet to break ground on the Seadrift project, which is slated to feature four Xe-100 reactors designed to provide thermal energy and electricity to the chemical plant. The company stated that the approval process for its construction permit has reached the final stages with the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
Both startups and major cloud computing firms are betting that small modular reactors (SMRs)—such as those being developed by X-energy—will help revitalize the nuclear industry. Recently constructed nuclear power plants in the United States have all faced significant budget overruns and construction delays.
By shrinking the size of their reactors, companies like X-energy hope that mass production will help control costs and shorten construction timelines. Even so, this remains a daunting challenge; experts note that it typically takes about a decade for mass production to begin yielding benefits.
X-energy went public on the Nasdaq this past April, with its initial public offering (IPO) priced at $23 per share. Investor enthusiasm was high, driving the stock up 27% on its first day of trading—but since then, the company’s share price has fallen by nearly two-thirds.
Following news of the acquisition by Amazon, X-energy’s stock rose by approximately 10% in pre-market trading; however, as of the time of writing, the shares were down by just under 2%.