Amazon is the latest tech company to join the nuclear bandwagon, investing in three energy companies to help bring more power output online across two states. The e-commerce giant signed agreements with Energy Northwest, a consortium of public utility companies in Washington State, X-energy, a small modular reactor (SMR) developer, and Dominion Energy, an electric utility provider based in Virginia that operates the North Anna nuclear power station. Amazon Web Services (AWS) CEO Matt Garman said, “Nuclear is a safe source of carbon-free energy that can help power our operations and meet the growing demands of our customers, while helping us progress toward our Climate Pledge commitment to be net-zero across our operations by 2040.”
This isn’t the company’s first venture into nuclear power, as it has previously bought a 960-MW data center in Pennsylvania directly connected to the nearby nuclear plant. However, these investments represent Amazon’s first direct investments in nuclear power production, joining the likes of Google, Microsoft, and Oracle in spending millions (if not billions) of dollars on research, development, and deployment of these carbon-free energy sources.
