By Valerie Volcovici and Timothy Gardner
July 1 (Reuters) – Valar Atomics, a nuclear power startup, said on Wednesday it is partnering with Nvidia to develop a small data center in Utah that the companies claim will show how computing facilities needed for AI can conserve water.
California-based Valar announced the partnership in Utah at the site of its small nuclear plant called a microreactor. It also ran a demonstration powering Nvidia’s Blackwell, its latest AI chip architecture for data centers. It was the first time a small reactor powered a data center, the companies said.
Valar is one of about 10 nuclear energy startups in a Department of Energy reactor pilot program that set a goal to demonstrate three small reactors reaching criticality — when a nuclear reaction can sustain itself — by July 4.
Nvidia announced last week that it would use closed-loop liquid cooling for DSX, its latest data center design, a method it says can reduce facility-cooling water consumption from roughly 2.6 million gallons per megawatt per year to near zero.
DATA CENTER OPPOSITION GROWS
Concerns over U.S. data centers’ demand for power and water have led to a backlash.
A Reuters/Ipsos poll last month showed that only one in three Americans approve of the fast pace of data center construction, an issue on the minds of voters ahead of the November 3 midterm elections.
The industry’s power need has led companies to seek to source their own power with private or “behind-the-meter” plants to enable them to bypass permitting, public stakeholder engagement and grid interconnection.
These projects have primarily been natural gas, but some companies are eying nascent small nuclear reactors to power AI infrastructure.
WHITE HOUSE PUSHES REACTORS
President Donald Trump’s administration sees small nuclear reactors as one of several ways to expand power generation. Trump last May issued executive orders aimed at quadrupling nuclear deployment.
“Through this work with Valar Atomics, Nvidia is exploring how behind-the-meter, waterless advanced nuclear systems could support future AI factories built for the scale and reliability accelerated computing requires,” said John Josephakis, an Nvidia global vice president.
Valar founder Isaiah Taylor said the startup is attempting to demonstrate that nuclear projects, which often face long regulatory hurdles, can be done quickly. Valar says its high-temperature reactor is cooled with helium instead of water.
Valar joined litigation against the Nuclear Regulatory Commission last year by the states of Texas and Utah arguing that it does not have licensing authority over some nuclear microreactors and small modular reactors, seeking to give that oversight to individual states.
(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici in Washington; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
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