Valar Atomics activates nuclear microreactor live to power Nvidia AI chip in first US demonstration

Startup activates nuclear microreactor live on stage to power an Nvidia RTX Spark desktop PC -- firm working with Nvidia to build a 30MW closed loop AI factory that doesn't use local water

Valar Atomics activated its Ward 250 nuclear microreactor on stage during a live event, where it announced its partnership with Nvidia to power an AI factory. The company shared a portion of the live stream on its LinkedIn account, where one of its team members plugged an Nvidia RTX desktop unit into the reactor, which was then turned up to 37% of its full power to activate the Blackwell-powered PC. The company then showed off the nuclearwebsite.com page, which it says is solely run from a server that's powered by that reactor. Its CEO, Isiah Taylor, claims that anyone can go to the website as long as the reactor is running. "The Nvidia chip that Gabriel was just holding on stage is now plugged into a circuit in the OCS. That circuit runs through a cable into the reactor hall. In the reactor hall, 10 to 15th power uranium atoms are fissioning every second, producing 100 kilowatts of thermal energy," Taylor said on the stage. "That thermal energy is being extracted by our cooling loop, the pressurized helium system, and the hot helium is flowing into a thermal electric generator (TEG). That TEG is creating the electrical current, which is right now powering Nvidia's Blackwell chip, which is currently serving this website." Although the company claims that it's the first startup to achieve power production, the Department of Energy says that two other firms, Deployable Energy's Unity and Antares Nuclear's Mark-0, have also achieved criticality, meaning these players are also on their way in making electricity using small modular reactors. Many AI tech giants and hyperscalers, like Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Nvidia, and Oracle, have invested in nuclear technologies as early as 2024, as they projected that AI data centers would require massive amounts of power. This has become a major national issue recently, with data centers being blamed for massive increases in power and utility costs, as well as increased water consumption and a reduction in the quality of life in the communities that surround these developments. These problems have caused Americans to push back against these projects, with 7 out of 10 saying that they do not want a data center in their backyard. This resistance has led to the delay or cancellation of at least 75 projects in just the first quarter of 2026. The public's pushback and the resulting actions of local and state governments against power- and water-hungry data center projects are forcing both the private and public sectors to innovate. Aside from these SMRs, which will deliver the electricity demands of these data centers and other sites without affecting the national and local grid, Amazon, Microsoft, and Nvidia are also working on technologies that will cut down data center water use by up to 100%. Follow Tom's Hardware on Google News, or add us as a preferred source, to get our latest news, analysis, & reviews in your feeds.

Valar nuclear startup partners with Nvidia on data center aiming to conserve water

July 1 (Reuters) - Valar Atomics, a nuclear power startup, said on Wednesday it is partnering with Nvidia (NVDA.O), opens new tab 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 Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles., opens new tab * Suggested Topics: * Energy * Water Management * Grid & Infrastructure * Refining * Nuclear Valerie Volcovici Thomson Reuters Valerie Volcovici covers U.S. climate and energy policy from Washington, DC. She is focused on climate and environmental regulations at federal agencies and in Congress and how the energy transition is transforming the United States. Other areas of coverage include her award-winning reporting plastic pollution and the ins and outs of global climate diplomacy and United Nations climate negotiations. Timothy Gardner Thomson Reuters Timothy reports on energy and environment policy and is based in Washington, D.C. His coverage ranges from the latest in nuclear power, to environment regulations, to U.S. sanctions and geopolitics. He has been a member of three teams in the past two years that have won Reuters best journalism of the year awards. As a cyclist he is happiest outside.

US first: Nuclear reactor generates electricity to power Nvidia chip

A California nuclear technology company has used a next-generation reactor prototype to supply electricity to an artificial intelligence chip for the first time in the United States. During a demonstration at an Emery County facility, Valar Atomics routed a small amount of electrical current from its Ward 250 reactor to an Nvidia Blackwell processor. The energy was temporarily utilized to operate a web server. "Valar Atomics became the first nuclear startup to make electricity, and we did it by powering an NVIDIA Spark," said the company in a media release. Alongside the equipment demonstration, Valar Atomics and Nvidia formalized a collaborative agreement to study configurations for nuclear-supported computing installations. The entities intend to design a 30-megawatt computing facility that runs entirely independently of local municipal water supplies. Data center operators face escalating electricity requirements to support heavy computational workloads. Standard data facility cooling mechanisms evaporate significant quantities of water, which strains local infrastructure. The proposed facility intends to eliminate this environmental footprint by matching a water-free reactor design with a specialized closed-loop fluid cooling system built by Nvidia. The electrical demonstration followed a preliminary testing phase completed last month, during which the Ward 250 unit achieved its initial controlled nuclear chain reaction. Before introducing nuclear fuel to the primary unit, engineering teams used a non-nuclear mock-up named Ward Zero to validate the equipment. By installing silicon carbide heating units within the core of the non-nuclear system, technicians simulated peak operating temperatures to verify that all structural components functioned properly under thermal stress. The underlying design utilizes a High-Temperature Gas-Cooled Reactor framework that Valar Atomics refers to as its Numenor architecture. The layout uses low-enriched uranium embedded within specialized TRISO-coated particles, utilizing helium gas as the primary thermal transport medium. This specific combination alters the safety profile of the facility. The physical properties of TRISO fuel and gas cooling allow the core to dissipate residual decay heat naturally. The mechanism prevents core degradation during severe operational failures without requiring electrical backup systems, water pumps, or automated mechanical overrides. The structural composition of low-enriched TRISO particles makes the fuel difficult to process for military applications, reducing proliferation risks. Because gas-cooled systems function at elevated operational temperatures, they generate high-grade thermal energy alongside electricity. This thermal output can be diverted directly to adjacent manufacturing plants, providing an integrated energy source for chemical processing and industrial manufacturing. Though the test established a technical baseline, advanced nuclear technology remains far from widespread commercial deployment. The domestic industry consists primarily of early-stage experimental projects, and federal regulators have not yet certified any next-generation advanced reactors for standard commercial sale in the United States. To address the economic barriers associated with traditional nuclear construction, Valar Atomics plans to structure its architecture for factory mass production. The manufacturing strategy focuses on fabricating units in small, modular sizes.

Nuclear reactor start-up targeting AI energy demands showcases its tech with an Nvidia DGX Spark, though the website demo needs its own power plant

Names poached from Tolkien's works. Glossy websites, packed with animations and all kinds of promises. Slightly ludicrous tech demonstration. All the hallmarks of today's tech companies, one might think. But in the case of one nuclear power start-up, the super-slick marketing is actually a good reminder that AI's rampant hunger for energy needs can't be ignored or solved by traditional methods. As reported by our chums over at Tom's Hardware, Valar Atomics recently hit the headlines by teaming up with Nvidia to demonstrate the first public run of its Ward 250 nuclear reactor, namely by using said device to power a DGX Spark. Not that one needs a big powerplant to run Nvidia's GB20-powered box, of course, but it's not hard to see what the implication is behind the tech demonstration. Yes, that's right: it's a solution to the exponential rise in energy consumption by AI data centers, hence Nvidia's involvement in all of this. But let me back up for a moment and explain what's noteworthy about Valar's system. The Ward 250 is a type of high-temperature gas-cooled nuclear microreactor (HTGR for short), which uses helium as the coolant and heat-transfer medium, rather than water, the norm for most reactors worldwide. But rather than using bulky heat exchangers to turn water into steam to drive a bunch of turbines and generators, Valar's system pushes the helium through a compact thermoelectric generator. While HTGRs have been around for many years, they've never really caught on in the world of nuclear reactors, despite their advantages in thermal efficiency and safety, mostly due to cost reasons. Since their cores run at very high temperatures, HTGRs require more expensive construction materials than a typical PWR (pressurised water reactor), and they're more costly to scale up. But while they're less suitable as a major provider for wholesale electricity, they're potentially ideal for powering something much smaller, such as a data center, and that's Valar Atomic's entire gist, though its operations so far have not been without criticism. Powering a DGX Spark wasn't enough for Valar, though, and it also has a website hosted on a server that the start-up claims is also juiced by the Ward 250. If you want to check it out, click on this link, but before you do, a word of caution. Right at the bottom of the page, there's a really neat-looking demo of the reactor core in operation, and you can play around with the control rods to fire it up or slow it down. However, the moment you jump in, your CPU's cooling fans will go brrrrr. Regardless of what browser I use, my Core Ultra 7 270K Plus processor jumps from 28 W of power consumption to around 72 W, with two P-cores merrily screaming away. Multiply that by, say, one hundred thousand website visitors, and you now have many megawatts of additional power being consumed to showcase Valar's system. Localised microreactors are probably going to be one of the more ideal solutions to AI's power needs, but it would be prudent not to require one just for the marketing of said devices.

Nvidia partners to pitch nuclear power as alternative to water cooling for AI data centres

As reported last week, the UN wants major AI firms to publicly disclose the full water, carbon, and land-use impact of their heavily consuming data centres. Now Nvidia, together with Valar Atomics, is pitching nuclear power as a way to reduce AI data centres' environmental footprint, according to Reuters. The startup demonstrated its microreactor powering Nvidia's Blackwell AI chip architecture in Utah. They claim it's the first time a small nuclear reactor has powered a data centre. The project focuses heavily on water conservation, as the old liquid cooling method is one of the biggest concerns in terms of environmental impact. Nvidia says its closed-loop design could cut facility cooling water "from around 2.6 million gallons per megawatt per year to near zero". Valar adds that its high-temperature reactor uses helium rather than water for the same purpose. The announcement of the partnership comes amid growing backlash against these data centres' power and water demands. US companies seek private "behind-the-meter" power plants, including gas and emerging nuclear reactors. In the meantime, the Trump administration pushes to expand nuclear deployment and to speed up small reactor projects.

Valar Atomics partners with Nvidia on nuclear-powered data center By Investing.com

Investing.com -- Valar Atomics announced Wednesday a partnership with Nvidia (NASDAQ:NVDA) to build a small data center in Utah powered by nuclear energy, aiming to demonstrate reduced water consumption for computing facilities used in artificial intelligence. The California-based nuclear power startup made the announcement at its Utah microreactor site, where it conducted a demonstration powering Nvidia's Blackwell AI chip architecture for data centers. The companies said this marked the first instance of a small reactor powering a data center. Valar Atomics is among approximately 10 nuclear energy startups participating in a Department of Energy reactor pilot program. The program has set a target to demonstrate three small reactors reaching criticality by July 4. Criticality occurs when a nuclear reaction can sustain itself. Nvidia announced last week that its latest data center design, DSX, will use closed-loop liquid cooling. The company said this method can reduce facility-cooling water consumption from roughly 2.6 million gallons per megawatt per year to near zero. This article was generated with the support of AI and reviewed by an editor. For more information see our T&C.