The Department of Energy just put $17.5 billion on the table to build ten new nuclear reactors across the United States. The driving force behind this push isn’t national defense or climate goals. It’s the insatiable electricity appetite of AI data centers.
The DOE announced plans to offer loans of up to $3.5 billion per project for the construction of Westinghouse AP1000 reactors at five locations. Construction is targeted to begin by 2030, with reactors expected to come online by the mid-2030s.
The numbers behind the nuclear bet
Data centers accounted for roughly 4-5% of US electricity consumption in 2024. That figure is projected to balloon to nearly 15% by 2028.
The administration’s broader ambition is even more aggressive. Executive orders signed by President Trump on May 23, 2025 set a target to quadruple national nuclear capacity from approximately 100 gigawatts in 2024 to 400 gigawatts by 2050. That would require not just new builds, but power uprates at existing plants of at least 5 GW.
