Energy Secretary: U.S. To Finance Parts For 10 Nuclear Reactors To Power Data Centers

Energy Secretary Chris Wright says he wants to rapidly accelerate nuclear power production to fuel the data center boom, and he is putting the government's money where his mouth is. 

The top U.S. energy official, speaking Thursday afternoon at Bisnow's Data Center Investment Conference, said he had a meeting earlier that day about a plan to partner with developers and lend federal money to order parts for nuclear reactors that require yearslong waits. 

Wright said the idea is to provide financing to give developers confidence to order parts that go into 1.1-gigawatt nuclear reactors.

On Tuesday, Reuters reported the DOE was considering such a plan, citing the head of the Nuclear Energy Institute. A DOE representative told Reuters it is "fully committed to unleashing America's next nuclear renaissance," but the spokesperson didn't comment on the plans. 

Wright confirmed the nuclear lending plans Thursday and gave more details. DOE plans to finance 10 of these reactors, spread across five different locations, he said. 

"We're going to order those parts as soon as possible," he said. "They're three to five years to get these parts. We've got to speed up the time frame."

The energy secretary framed this as part of the Trump administration's efforts to speed up energy production to fuel data centers that power artificial intelligence, saying it is critical that the U.S. beat its adversaries in the AI race. He said the U.S. has stopped developing nuclear power in recent decades, while Russia and China are "building reactors around the world." 

He also discussed DOE's efforts to advance the development of small modular reactors, a technology the data center industry has touted as a long-term solution to its power crisis. Providing between 50 and 300 megawatts of power — less than one-third the capacity of traditional nuclear reactors — they can be built on data center campuses to provide power outside of the grid. 

The DOE selected eight companies on Thursday for $94M in federal funding to support the deployment of SMRs. 

It is also developing three test reactors at the Idaho National Laboratory that are expected to be operational by July 4. That date was the goal set in an executive order last May, and Wright confirmed Thursday it is on track. 

These reactors will be for research purposes, and it is still expected to be several years before commercial SMRs are deployed on data center sites. But Wright said progress is accelerating.  

"The ball is going to start moving," he said. "It's been stagnant for years. We're going to get the nuclear ball moving again. It's an awesome source of electricity for data centers and ratepayers going forward."

The DOE and Nuclear Regulatory Commission have been partnering on this SMR effort, and Wright said he was heading to the NRC headquarters in Rockville, Maryland, to discuss SMRs after the Bisnow event, which was held at the Bethesda North Marriott. 

He said the urgency with which these agencies have been moving to develop new nuclear power capacity mirrors the data center industry's efforts to build quickly. But amid the historic surge in construction of this digital infrastructure, power costs have been on the rise.

Wholesale power prices on the largest U.S. electric grid rose 76% in the first quarter, driven by the rise of demand from data centers, Bloomberg reported. As everyday Americans' power bills have risen, so has their opposition to data centers.

A Gallup poll released this week found 7 in 10 U.S. residents oppose data centers being built in their communities. Wright acknowledged that was a growing hurdle to the administration's AI push.

"It makes people feel like they're striking back at 'the man' to vote against data centers," Wright said. "They've been told that terrible things happen and they're against terrible things. So [opponents] have an easier sell than us. They are ahead in polls."

"We need to lean in and win the public over," he added.

Seven of the biggest AI companies — Google, Microsoft, Meta, Oracle, xAI, OpenAI and Amazon — signed the Ratepayer Protection Pledge at the White House in March, promising to cover the cost of power upgrades for data centers so they aren't passed along to ratepayers.

Onstage on Thursday, Wright said the Trump administration still hasn't established a monitoring or enforcement system to ensure companies honor the pledge.

"We don’t have a formal thing set up yet. I think we will, but everybody’s been open," he said. "We’ve been engaged. We don’t have a formal mechanism yet, but we do need to do that, because it is a great response to the opponents of data centers."