Amazon, X-energy and American Electric Power (AEP) announced on October 19, 2026 an agreement to develop a 960-megawatt nuclear plant in Indiana, made up of 12 Xe-100 small modular reactors. The site is the former Breed coal plant in Sullivan County, south of Terre Haute.
The deal is a joint development agreement, a contract to study and plan the project ahead of any decision to build. Amazon is funding the early phases with capital tied to the achievement of set milestones and, once the plant is operating, would buy the power under a long-term contract. The electricity would go to the public grid and to the company’s data centers. AEP would operate the plant through its subsidiary Indiana Michigan Power, while X-energy would supply the reactor. No costs or construction start dates have been disclosed.
The Xe-100 is a high-temperature, gas-cooled reactor using helium as coolant, rated at 80 megawatts per unit. It runs on TRISO fuel, designed to withstand extreme temperatures. Twelve modules add up to 960 megawatts. According to Amazon, the project could create more than 1,000 construction jobs and over 100 permanent ones.
The agreement is the second commercial contract between Amazon and X-energy, and three times the size of the first, announced two years ago for the Energy Northwest site in Washington State. In October 2024, Amazon led X-energy’s $700 million Series C-1 funding round, and the two companies are targeting 5 gigawatts of new nuclear capacity in the United States by 2039. X-energy has been listed on the Nasdaq since last April.
Behind the move is rising electricity demand. According to data cited by Utility Dive, peak demand in Indiana is expected to climb from 2,800 to more than 7,000 megawatts by 2030, driven by large loads such as data centers. Sullivan County is part of the state’s Indiana Advanced Nuclear Ready Communities program, which brings together communities working to host new nuclear. Governor Mike Braun said the project can strengthen the state’s grid and make it a national benchmark for advanced nuclear.
Building on the site of a decommissioned coal plant allows developers to reuse land that is already connected to the grid. The next step is a feasibility study, while X-energy’s first commercial project, the Seadrift plant in Texas for Dow, has its construction permit in the final stages of review by the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. If that licensing path is completed, Indiana could become the first testing ground for a fleet of grid-connected Xe-100 reactors.
