Hot on the heels of Google's news* we see this.
From Bloomberg, October 16:
- Amazon latest tech company to back new breed of mini-reactors
- Company anchors $500 million in X-Energy to develop SMRs
Amazon.com Inc. and billionaire financier Ken Griffin are among the backers anchoring a $500 million investment in small nuclear reactors, a burgeoning technology heralded as the next era for atomic energy.
The Seattle-based company has signed agreements to develop the new breed of reactors — dubbed small modular reactors, or SMRs — in both Washington and Virginia, investing in in X-Energy, a privately-held advanced nuclear reactor developer.
The financing will help pay for the development of more than 5 gigawatts of new power projects coming online across the US by 2039, X-Energy said in a statement Wednesday.
“It’s going to allow us to build smaller, self-contained power generation near data centers, near where we want in a completely safe and scalable way,” Matt Garman, chief executive officer of Amazon Web Services, said during remarks at the company’s offices in Arlington, Virginia.
Amazon’s announcement comes as technology companies are searching for new energy supplies to power massive data centers needed to run artificial intelligence systems. Alphabet Inc.’s Google announced Monday it was backing the nuclear power and signed an agreement with Kairos Power to construct a series of SMRs that use molten-salt cooling technology....
From the Company:
- Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund, Citadel Founder and CEO Ken Griffin, affiliates of Ares Management Corporation, NGP, and the University of Michigan, invest approximately $500 million in Series C-1 financing round for X-energy.
- Amazon, X-energy aim to bring more than 5 gigawatts online in the United States by 2039, the largest commercial deployment target of SMRs to date.
- Amazon commits to support initial 320-megawatt project with Energy Northwest in central Washington.
- Investment solidifies X-energy’s leading role in commercializing SMR technology to revolutionize the nuclear industry.
