Tanya Weaver Fri 17 Oct 2025
Collected at: https://eandt.theiet.org/2025/10/17/amazon-sets-sights-new-us-nuclear-reactor-facility-power-booming-ai-and-data-centre
Tech giant Amazon has announced plans to build a small modular reactor (SMR) facility in Washington state to provide carbon-free energy for its expanding data centres and AI infrastructure.
The Cascade Advanced Energy Facility will be built outside Richland, Washington. A collaboration between Amazon, Washington-based utility Energy Northwest and SMR developer X-energy, the facility will feature up to 12 SMRs.
Amazon said that these SMRs will power its operations with clean energy and supply carbon-free electricity to the grid.
Like other tech giants, including Meta and Microsoft, Amazon intends to harness nuclear energy to help power its AI efforts. The reason for this is reliability of energy supply and reduction in carbon emissions.
Whereas nuclear plants typically take a decade or more to come online, SMRs are entirely factory-built facilities that can be transported as modules and assembled on-site, radically reducing construction and deployment time. They also have a significantly smaller footprint than traditional nuclear plants but can be easily scaled if needed.
The new Cascade facility will feature X-energy’s Xe-100 fourth-generation SMR design. It will initially be built as three 320MW sections, with options to expand to 12 units, bringing the capacity to 960MW.
According to Amazon, construction is currently expected to start by the end of the decade, with operations targeted to start in the 2030s.
Kara Hurst, Amazon’s chief sustainability officer, said: “This project isn’t just about new technology; it’s about creating a reliable source of carbon-free energy that will support our growing digital world.
“I’m excited about the potential of SMRs and the positive impact they will have on both the environment and local communities.”
For Amazon, Cascade is part of a broader effort to add more than 5GW of new nuclear energy to the US grid by 2039 to meet the increasing energy demand from its AI data centres.
In August 2025, Amazon signed a strategic partnership with X-energy, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power Corporation and South Korean power generation firm Doosan Enerbility to speed up the deployment of SMRs in the US.
In a recent issue of E+T, we looked at why nuclear could be the answer to energy-guzzling AI data centres, and whether the gamble in this technology will pay off.
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