{"id":224669,"date":"2025-10-19T07:56:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-19T07:56:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/224669\/"},"modified":"2025-10-19T07:56:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-19T07:56:11","slug":"amazon-reveals-960-megawatt-nuclear-power-plans-to-cope-with-ai-demand-richland-washington-site-tapped-for-deployment-of-xe-100-small-modular-reactors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/224669\/","title":{"rendered":"Amazon reveals 960 megawatt nuclear power plans to cope with AI demand \u2014 Richland, Washington site tapped for deployment of Xe-100 small modular reactors"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amazon<\/a> has revealed plans<\/a> to help build one of the United States\u2019 first modular nuclear power campuses in a move designed to supply carbon-free electricity for its growing AI and cloud workloads.<\/p>\n

Announced on October 16, the new Cascade Advanced Energy Facility will be located in Richland, Washington, near the Columbia Generating Station. The site, developed with local utility Energy Northwest, is expected to enter construction by the end of the decade and begin generating power sometime in the 2030s, pending regulatory approval and financing.<\/p>\n

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The facility will use Xe-100 small modular reactors from X-energy, each rated at 80 megawatts. The initial phase will deploy four reactors for a combined 320 megawatts, with room to scale up to 12 units delivering 960 megawatts. Amazon says the project is part of its broader push to secure access to clean power for its AWS data centers and generative AI clusters, which are becoming major industrial-scale energy consumers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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While Amazon\u2019s involvement makes this one of the most concrete SMR proposals yet tied to AI infrastructure, the project is still in early development. The Xe-100 reactor is undergoing pre-application review at the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission, and no construction permits have yet been granted. Energy Northwest and X\u2011energy are expected to lead licensing and engineering for the Cascade project, and the partners have said they\u2019re exploring federal support through the U.S. Department of Energy\u2019s loan programs.<\/p>\n

Last year, Amazon invested in X-energy<\/a> through its Climate Pledge Fund and separately acquired a data center campus adjacent to a nuclear plant in Pennsylvania. But Cascade is the first time Amazon has publicly committed to helping bring new nuclear generation online\u2014something no hyperscaler has yet achieved.<\/p>\n

The project could be a litmus test for the future of SMRs. Advocates argue that advanced reactors like the Xe-100 can be built faster than traditional nuclear plants, with modular designs that better suit today\u2019s distributed grid. But the 2023 collapse of NuScale\u2019s Idaho SMR project \u2014 canceled after costs ballooned and subscribers dropped out \u2014 highlights significant risks.<\/p>\n

Amazon hasn\u2019t disclosed how much of Cascade\u2019s output it plans to use, but U.S. data center power requirements could triple by 2030 and account for 9% of electricity demand by 2035<\/a>, driven largely by generative AI and accelerated compute. Amazon appears to be betting that if it wants a guaranteed, zero-carbon supply for that future, it may need to build the grid itself.<\/p>\n

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