An Amazon-backed developer of small modular nuclear reactors plans to go public, a sign of momentum for a technology long eyed as a critical part of the data center sector’s energy future.

X-Energy submitted its filing for an initial public offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Friday, with the nuclear startup pursuing a Nasdaq listing under the ticker symbol XE.

The Rockville, Maryland-based company is one of a handful of firms trying to spearhead the commercial deployment of small modular reactors, or SMRs.

Sometimes called microreactors, SMRs are closer in size to the power plant on a nuclear submarine than a utility-owned nuclear power station. Data center leaders have eyed SMRs as a potential silver bullet for the worsening power constraints facing the industry.

In its SEC filing, first reported by Reuters, the company explicitly identified data centers as the main consumers of the power its reactors will produce, writing that its technology will “help satisfy historically unprecedented electricity demand growth, driven by the development of AI and associated data center infrastructure."

X-Energy is seeking federal approval in the U.S. to deploy its Xe-100 reactor, a design known as a pebble-bed reactor fueled by baseball-size “pebbles” containing uranium. The firm’s first planned project isn't at a data center but at a Dow manufacturing facility in Port Lavaca, Texas.

Still, data centers make up the bulk of the company’s U.S. pipeline.

The firm received a $500M cash infusion led by Amazon in 2024, and the two companies inked a deal to deploy more than 5 gigawatts of power generation in the U.S. by 2039. The partnership’s first project is slated to be at the Cascade Advanced Energy Facility in Washington, a planned SMR complex near Richland being codeveloped with Energy Northwest.

X-Energy’s deal with Amazon isn't the firm’s only planned development linked to data centers in the U.S. Last week, the company announced a deal with Talen Energy to deploy SMRs in Pennsylvania and elsewhere within the footprint of PJM Interconnection, the country's largest power grid. X-Energy also inked an agreement with a pair of Korean companies last year that aims to deploy SMRs in American markets.

Ahead of its planned IPO, the company has raised more than $700M in its most recent funding round, which closed in November.

Many of the sector’s largest players are making big bets on new but commercially unproven nuclear technologies that could help solve their growing energy woes.

Among them is Google, which committed to purchasing energy from SMR startup Kairos Power in 2024. Data center REIT Equinix announced agreements last year with a number of SMR firms, including Oklo and Radiant.

This week, ChatGPT-maker OpenAI acknowledged it is in advanced talks to buy electricity from Helion Energy, a nuclear fusion startup backed by OpenAI founder Sam Altman.