Amazon announced a series of new deals, and a $500 million investment, kicking off an expanded move to nuclear energy as a component of its strategy to address the increasing climate impact of its rapidly growing data center footprint.

The announcement marks the latest in a series of nuclear deals signed by the world’s largest tech companies, including Google’s small modular reactor agreement with Kairos Power earlier this week, and Microsoft’s PPPA with Constellation Energy in September to enable the restart of the Three Mile Island Unit 1 nuclear reactor in Pennsylvania.

Amazon pledged in 2019 to match all of the electricity consumed across its global operations, including data centers, corporate buildings, stores and fulfillment centers, with 100% renewable energy by 2030. While the company announced in July 2024 that it achieved its 100% clean energy goal 7 years ahead of schedule, it also stated at the time that the increasing demand for generative AI “will require different sources of energy than we originally projected,” and that it will explore new carbon-free energy sources in addition to its continued investments in renewables.

Amazon’s new nuclear announcements focus on the use of small modular reactors (SMR), providing a significant boost for the emerging technology, following Google’s recent SMR-focused deal.

SMRs are advanced nuclear reactors that are substantially smaller than traditional nuclear power plants, providing benefits including faster build times and the ability to be deployed closer to the grid.

Amazon’s new agreements include a deal with state public utilities consortium Energy Northwest in Washington for the development of four SMRs, anticipated to generate 320 MW of capacity, with an option to increase to 960 MW, and with utility company Dominion Energy to explore the development of an SMR project that will bring at least 300 MW of power to the Virginia region.

Amazon also announced that it is anchoring a $500 million investment in SMR reactor and fuel developer X-Energy, with the company’s reactor design to be used in the Energy Northwest project. Amazon’s investment. Amazon and X-Energy stated that they are collaborating to bring more than 5 GW of new projects online across the U.S. by 2039, marking the largest commercial deployment target of SMRs to date.

The new SMR-focused agreements follow an announcement by Amazon earlier this year of a deal with Talen Energy to co-locate a data center facility next to Talen’s nuclear facility in Pennsylvania, helping to power Amazon’s data centers with carbon-free energy and preserving Talen’s existing reactor.

Matt Garman, CEO of Amazon Web Services (AWS), said:

“One of the fastest ways to address climate change is by transitioning our society to carbon-free energy sources, and nuclear energy is both carbon-free and able to scale—which is why it’s an important area of investment for Amazon. Our agreements will encourage the construction of new nuclear technologies that will generate energy for decades to come.”