Nuclear for AI

The nuclear-for-AI wave — but ~0 net-new MW power any AI datacenter before 2027, and the first firm power is a RESTART (TMI-1), not a new build. The ~13GW announced is <20% of projected demand; every genuinely new SMR/Gen-IV project is 2030s-weighted. Watch which actually clear licensing.

STATUS · OPEN OPENED · 2026-07-24 LAST SEEN · 2026-07-25

Amazon AWS Microsoft Oracle

2026-07-27 — The nuclear book across the four ⟨crawl 2026-07-27⟩

Microsoft: TMI/Crane 2027 (DOE $1B, NRC draft + FERC cleared) · Amazon: Talen 1.92GW/17yr firm + X-Energy 5GW-by-2039 · Google: TVA/Kairos Gen-IV (2030) · Meta: RFP awards ≤6.6GW (Oklo/TerraPower/ Vistra) — but hedged with a 7.5GW gas pivot. Skeptical note: SMR timelines lag near-term demand (Bulletin, 07-20).

2026-07-25 — First federal dollar ⟨daily 2026-07-25⟩

DOE tapped Oklo/X-Energy for a $200M nuclear-for-AI push; aggregate nuclear deals signed by AI companies now ≈ 7M homes of power (07-26 figure). The thread’s first real items since opening quiet.

2026-07-24 — Opened + crawled

Thread opened (ben-steer). ⟨steer 2026-07-24⟩
Verdict: power is the binding constraint, and nuclear is a real but 2030s-weighted marathon. Carnegie (06-2026) pegs the ~13GW of announced hyperscaler nuclear at <20% of projected datacenter demand through 2035; a single year of planned US solar (43GW) dwarfs the whole mid-2030s nuclear pipeline. The near-term “firm” adds are restarts/uprates that re-label existing MW, not new generation. ⚠ WebSearch budget exhausted (fan-out) — some 2026 items aggregator-only, flagged. ⟨crawl 2026-07-24⟩

← Backstory (crawl 2026-07-24 → artifacts/findings/nuclear-for-ai-2026-07-24.md)

2026-06 — The reality check

NRC issued a draft Environmental Assessment for the TMI-1/Crane restart (~835 MW, still in SAFSTOR, final finding ~Sept 2026) — the first firm power, targeted 2027. Same month, Carnegie’s “Beyond the Hype” quantified the announced-vs-real gap. (Carnegie) ⟨crawl 2026-07-24⟩

2026-01 — Meta’s nuclear trifecta

Meta signed three deals in one month — TerraPower (~2.8GW Natrium by ‘35), Oklo (1.2GW Aurora, Ohio, by ‘34), Vistra (~2.6GW existing-plant PPAs + uprates) — new-build plus fleet re-labeling. (Carnegie) ⟨crawl 2026-07-24⟩

2024-2025 — The wave’s anchors

Microsoft/Constellation to restart TMI-1 (09-2024, 20-yr PPA, ~835MW, now targeted 2027) · Amazon/X-energy ($700M, Xe-100 SMRs, first ~320MW ~2030) + Amazon/Talen 1.9GW existing-reactor PPA · Google/ Kairos (50→500MW by 2035, first US Gen-IV PPA). Every genuinely NEW build is a 2030-2039 SMR/Gen-IV project on designs not yet operating in the US. (World Nuclear News) ⟨crawl 2026-07-24⟩

The Projection