For two years the AI power story was "the grid cannot keep up." The iteration landing this summer is quieter and sharper: small modular reactors are being sold to data centers the way a UPS is — not as power plants for the grid, but as generation physically behind the operator's own meter. The clearest marker of how far this has moved: a company chosen to build a nuclear-powered AI data center has already made its test reactor go critical.[1]
Crusoe has partnered with Aalo Atomics to develop and deploy what Data Center Dynamics calls "the world's first nuclear-powered AI data center": a Crusoe Spark modular data center at Idaho National Laboratory in 2027, powered directly by Aalo's Pod reactor — 50MWe made from five 10MWe Aalo-1 microreactors driving a single turbine.[1] The companies say they intend to deploy Aalo Pods across Crusoe's data center portfolio by the end of 2029.[1]
The design detail worth noticing: the Pod is sodium and air-cooled, meaning it requires no external water source — an answer to the water fight that has stalled data centers and communities alike.[1]
Aalo reported criticality for its Aalo-X Critical Test Reactor in the early morning hours of July 4, 2026, at Idaho National Laboratory, meeting the US Department of Energy's Reactor Pilot Program deadline — one of four advanced nuclear companies to reach criticality that month, after Antares and alongside Valar and Deployable Energy.[1] Criticality is the self-sustaining chain reaction; the test reactor is the proof that the microreactor line actually splits atoms, not just raises money.[1]
On August 7, 2026, SMR firm Nuclea Energy signed a non-binding MoU with Bitcoin miner New Mining Co. to evaluate powering New Mining's operations behind the meter with its container-housed Morphues microreactor — a 3.5MW unit on HALUE fuel with a five-year refueling cycle.[2] The evaluation is phased: engineering scoping for New Mining's current ~30MWe of operational load first, then modular expansion toward up to 100MWe; first deployment is targeted for sometime in 2030.[2] New Mining operates an estimated 65MW of capacity across North Dakota and Minnesota.[2]
On the longer horizon, Deep Fission and Endeavour agreed in January 2025 to co-develop 2GW of nuclear energy for Endeavour's Edged-brand data centers, with first reactors expected operational in 2029.[3] Deep Fission's DFBR-1 is a pressurized water reactor producing 15MWt (thermal) and 5MWe (electric) with a 10- to 20-year fuel cycle, placed in a 30-inch borehole up to a mile deep — deep geology provides the pressurization a conventional plant gets from thick steel vessels.[3]
Nearly half of the planned 2026 large data center projects have yet to disclose a power strategy, and the rack itself got hungry: traditional 5-10kW racks became Blackwell-generation GPU racks drawing at least 120kW each, with the 2026 Vera Rubin NVL72 approaching 200kW and the Rubin Ultra NVL576 "Kyber" model expected to reach 600kW by 2027 — power density up 60x to 120x in a decade.[4] Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt told a US congressional panel that AI data centers will need 29GW of additional power by 2027 and 67GW more by 2030.[4]
The grid is not the place to get it: joining an interconnection queue means a 4- to 5-year average wait, and every month of delay costs a 60MW data center about $14.2 million.[4] Nuclear already supplies about 20% of data center electricity, behind natural gas (~40%) and coal (~15%) per the IEA — so "atoms for data" is an expansion story, not a start from zero.[4]
Read together, the deals show the unit of nuclear is shrinking toward the unit of compute: a 50MWe Pod for one containerized data center, a 3.5MW microreactor for one miner's campus, a 5MWe borehole reactor for a campus cluster — generation sized like infrastructure, dated 2029-2030.[1][2][3] The whole set is agreements and targets, not operating commercial hardware: the only reactor in this digest that has actually gone critical is a test reactor (Aalo-X), and every commercial fleet date sits two to four years out.[1][3][2] The honest reading is momentum, not dispatch — but the momentum now includes a criticality record, which is the part that did not exist a year ago.[1]
Honest caveats: the evidence here is three Data Center Dynamics news pieces and one TechTarget feature, all fetched live 2026-09-13, with every quoted sentence matched verbatim against the fetched text.[unverified] Dollar-and-capacity figures like 5-7 cents per kWh and 50-300MW per SMR are company or industry claims, not independent benchmarks, and the Deep Fission agreement predates the DOE criticality wave by eighteen months.[3][4] Behind-the-meter nuclear is also a regulatory open question — the NRC licensing path and first-of-its-kind deployment risk are exactly where these firms' 2029-2030 dates will live or die.[4]
[1] datacenterdynamics.com — Crusoe partners with Aalo on nuclear-powered AI data center deployment at INL (2026-07-30)"Crusoe has partnered with small modular reactor (SMR) developer Aalo Atomics to develop and deploy the world's first nuclear-powered AI data center.""The partnership will see Crusoe deploy one of its Crusoe Spark modular data centers at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL) in 2027, as a proof-of-concept project. The Spark unit will be powered directly by Aalo's Pod reactor, a 50MWe reactor that comprises five individual Aalo-1 microreactors (each with a capacity of 10MWe) paired with a single power-generating turbine.""Following this, the companies said that they intend to deploy Aalo Pods across Crusoe’s data center portfolio by the end of 2029.""The company reported that it had achieved criticality for its Aalo-X Critical Test Reactor in the early morning hours of July 4, 2026, at the INL, meeting the deadline stipulated in the program.""The company joined Antares, which was the first to achieve criticality, as well as Valar and Deployable Energy.""It is sodium and air-cooled, meaning it requires no external water source."
[2] datacenterdynamics.com — SMR firm Nuclea inks MoU with New Mining (2026-08-07)"Small modular reactor (SMR) firm Nuclea Energy has signed a non-binding Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Bitcoin miner New Mining Co. to evaluate the feasibility of deploying its nuclear reactor technology to power New Mining’s operations behind the meter.""According to the companies, the evaluation will be structured in two phases, with an initial phase focused on engineering scoping for New Mining’s current approximately 30MWe of operational data center load, followed by a scalability phase evaluating modular expansion toward a capacity of up to 100MWe.""Nuclea Energy’s flagship product is its Morphues microreactor, a 3.5MW reactor designed to be housed in a modular container. The unit is powered via HALUE fuel, and has a five-year refueling cycle.""New Mining is a US-based company that specializes in ASIC cryptocurrency mining and hosting services. It operates an estimated 65MW of capacity across sites in North Dakota and Minnesota.""The company has targeted its first deployment for sometime in 2030."
[3] datacenterdynamics.com — Deep Fission to supply Endeavour data centers with 2GW from "mile-deep" SMR (2025-01-07)"Deep Fission, a small modular nuclear reactor (SMR) developer, has partnered with Endeavour Energy, a US sustainable infrastructure developer, to develop and deploy its technology at scale.""As per the agreement, the partners have committed to co-developing 2GW of nuclear energy to supply Endeavour's global portfolio of data centers which operate under the Endeavour Edged brand. The first reactors are expected to be operational by 2029.""The Deep Fission Borehole Reactor 1 (DFBR-1) is a pressurized water reactor (PWR) that produces 15MWt (thermal) and 5MWe (electric) and has an estimated fuel cycle of between ten to 20 years.""It is designed to be placed in a 30-inch borehole, using deep geology to provide pressurization and containment, which, according to the company, will increase security and lower costs.""The reactor can be placed up to one mile deep, where its hydrostatic pressure is similar to the pressure found in standard PWRs.""In October, AWS signed three agreements with Energy Northwest, X-Energy, and Dominion Virginia to support the deployment of more than 600MW of power across Washington and Virginia.""The year culminated in data center developer Switch signing a non-binding agreement to purchase up to 12GW of power from SMR firm Oklo through 2044."
[4] techtarget.com — Powering AI's future: the case for nuclear energy in data centers (2026-08-31)"Investments in AI infrastructure are projected to reach $765 billion by 2026 and $1.6 trillion annually by 2031.""Nearly half of the planned 2026 large data center projects have yet to disclose a power strategy""With the 2026 Vera Rubin NVL72 approaching 200 kW and the future Rubin Ultra NVL576 "Kyber" model expected to reach 600 kW by 2027, power density has increased by 60x to 120× over the past decade.""Former Google CEO Eric Schmidt, in testimony before a U.S. congressional panel, said that AI data centers will need 29 GW of additional power by 2027 and 67 GW more by 2030, according to Tech Policy Press.""Connecting new data centers with highly demanding AI workloads to the grid requires submitting a request and joining an interconnection queue with a 4- to 5-year average wait time.""As of today, about 40% of the electricity used by data centers comes from natural gas, and about 15% comes from coal, according to the IEA. Nuclear energy is growing in popularity, accounting for 20% of data center power and emerging as the most promising path to sustainable AI scalability.""In October 2024, Google announced a contract with Kairos Power to develop a fleet of small modular reactors (SMRs) targeting 500 MW, with the first reactor expected to come online by 2030.""Each SMR has a capacity of 50 MW to 300 MW and can be deployed in increments to match actual compute demand rather than relying on projections."