$Amazon(AMZN.US) is funding a nearly 1 gigawatt nuclear power plant in Indiana to help feed its data centers

$Amazon(AMZN.US), $American Electric Power(AEP.US) and X-energy $X-Energy(XE.US) announced a joint development deal Monday to study building 12 of X-energy's Xe-100 small modular reactors at the site of a retired coal plant in Sullivan County, Indiana

Each reactor makes 80 MW, so the full plant would add 960 MW of carbon-free, around the clock power for the regional grid and $Amazon(AMZN.US)'s data centers

$Amazon(AMZN.US) is putting up milestone-based development capital and intends to buy the power under a long-term contract that covers the plant's costs, so $American Electric Power(AEP.US)'s existing customers are not stuck with the bill

It is the second project in the $Amazon(AMZN.US) and X-energy push to add more than 5 GW of new US nuclear capacity by 2039, following the Cascade facility with Energy Northwest in Washington state. $Amazon(AMZN.US) led X-energy's $700M funding round in 2024

The catch is that this is still feasibility work, with no final investment decision. No Xe-100 is running yet, and X-energy's first plant, a four reactor project at a $Dow(DOW.US) site in Texas, is still in the final stage of NRC review for a construction permit

Last week the market punished AI stocks over how the buildout gets financed. This is the other half of that bill. Power is turning into the real bottleneck, and the hyperscalers are now underwriting their own power plants more than a decade out. $Amazon(AMZN.US) is already backing over 40 GW of carbon-free energy across 700+ projects, but the payoff here runs on nuclear timelines, not earnings calls

Source: StockMarket.News