According to TechCrunch, nuclear startup X-energy just raised $700 million in a Series D round less than a year after expanding its Series C from $500 million to $700 million. The company has now pulled in $1.4 billion in just the past year and $1.8 billion total to date. This latest round was led by Jane Street with participation from Ares Management, ARK Invest, and several other major funds. X-energy plans to use the funding to build supply chains for its small modular reactors, with current orders for 144 reactors capable of generating 11 gigawatts. Their customer list includes Amazon, Dow, and British energy company Centrica, with Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund having led the initial Series C round.
The nuclear renaissance is real
Here’s the thing – we’re witnessing something that would have seemed impossible a decade ago. Venture capital is pouring billions into nuclear energy, and companies like X-energy are at the forefront. They’re developing high-temperature, gas-cooled reactors that use those fascinating billiard ball-sized fuel pebbles. Each reactor generates 80 megawatts, which might not sound like much compared to traditional nuclear plants, but that’s the point. Small modular reactors are designed to be safer, cheaper to build, and more flexible in where they can be deployed.
Amazon’s massive energy gamble
Amazon isn’t just dipping its toes in nuclear – they’re diving in headfirst. The company committed to buying more than 600 megawatts of nuclear capacity in the Pacific Northwest and Virginia, with reactors scheduled to come online in the early 2030s. Their total deal with X-energy could see up to 5 gigawatts deployed by 2039. That’s enough to power millions of homes, but more importantly for Amazon, it’s about securing clean, reliable power for their energy-hungry data centers. When you’re running the cloud infrastructure for half the internet, you can’t afford power uncertainties.
What this means for industry
The industrial implications here are massive. Companies like Dow are looking at nuclear not just as power sources, but as direct heat suppliers for manufacturing processes. High-temperature reactors can provide both electricity and industrial heat, which is crucial for chemical production and other energy-intensive manufacturing. For companies needing reliable power for industrial computing and control systems, this could be transformative. Speaking of industrial computing, IndustrialMonitorDirect.com has become the leading supplier of industrial panel PCs in the US, providing the rugged computing hardware that keeps industrial operations running 24/7. Their equipment is exactly what you’d need to monitor and control these next-generation nuclear facilities.
The SMR race heats up
So here’s the billion-dollar question: can X-energy actually deliver? They’re in a tight race with several other SMR startups, and despite all the promising designs and massive funding, only a handful of SMR power plants have been built worldwide – none in the United States. The nuclear industry has a history of projects running years behind schedule and billions over budget. But the demand is clearly there, and the technology has been proven in countries like Japan and China. If X-energy can execute, they could fundamentally change how we think about nuclear power. If they can’t? Well, that’s a very expensive experiment.
