Amazon pivots to nuclear power with new Indiana reactor project

The proposed plant intends to generate up to 960 megawatts of power, feeding both the regional grid and Amazon's infrastructure. While the company projects the creation of 1,000 construction jobs and 100 permanent positions, no specific timeline for development has been set. The facility relies on the Xe-100 reactor design, an unproven technology currently navigating licensing hurdles. These reactors utilize a flexible cooling system, which proponents claim allows for deployment in water-constrained areas without straining local resources.

This Indiana site represents the second collaboration between Amazon and X-energy, following the Cascade Advanced Energy Facility in Washington. The companies have set a long-term goal of deploying 5 gigawatts of nuclear capacity across the United States by 2039. The move aligns Amazon with industry peers like Google, Meta, and Microsoft, all of whom are increasingly looking to nuclear energy to satisfy the immense power demands of artificial intelligence. Although the company has publicly committed to these investments to mitigate concerns regarding data center energy consumption, the actual delivery of this power remains years away.