AMZN
Big Tech, meet big watts
Amazon has decided that the future of cloud computing may need something a little stronger than a few extra servers and a pep talk. The company is investing $1 billion in X-Energy, a nuclear energy startup, as it keeps hunting for the juice to keep AWS, AI, and all the other hungry bits of its empire running.
Why this matters
This isn’t Amazon suddenly becoming a utility company for fun. It’s a sign that the AI arms race has a very unglamorous bottleneck: power. Data centers are gobbling up electricity like teenagers at a buffet, and nuclear is looking more attractive because it can provide steady, carbon-light energy without relying on the weather.
The investor angle
For Amazon, the move does a few things at once:
- helps secure long-term power access for its growing infrastructure needs
- gives it optionality as AI workloads keep ballooning
- signals that Big Tech is willing to put real money behind energy solutions, not just complain about grid constraints
It also nudges the market conversation from “Who has the best AI model?” to “Who can keep the lights on for the best AI model?” That’s a very different, very expensive game.
Big picture
If this works, Amazon isn’t just renting compute power — it’s helping build the power plant that feeds the beast. And in the current AI era, that may be the smarter flex.