AI power pressure on data centres is pushing nuclear power starters to the front of the financing market. According to TechCrunch, informed sources, Valar Atomics, which has been in existence for about three years, is negotiating a new round of financing, with a target estimate of about $6 billion, with expected capital inflows from the Redwood.

Current round of financing or up to $1 billion

According to reports, the scale of the round was approximately $1 billion, and the Information had been the first to disclose the negotiations. The source also indicated that the funds were not one-time on the same valuation and that some of them had been raised at lower valuation levels.

According to Bloomberg, in March this year, Valar had previously financed $450 million, including $340 million in equity financing and $110 million in debt financing, with a corresponding valuation of approximately $2 billion.

In the current AI-driven financing environment, it is increasingly common to complete the same round of financing in stages and valuations. This means that the “one-round valuation” seen outside does not necessarily mean that all investors enter at the same price.

Neither Valar nor Redwood capital commented on the financing negotiations.

Access to electricity in collaboration with Nvidia

Earlier this month, Valar demonstrated that its nuclear reactor had been able to provide a small amount of electricity to a Nvidia AI chip. At almost the same time, Valar and Nvidia announced a partnership to explore the use of nuclear energy to power future AI data centres.

This progress is taking place at a time when the demand for electricity in the data centre is rising rapidly. In the coming years, AI ' s computing expansion is expected to continue to push up electricity use, while utility companies in many regions will be unable to make up for the new power supply in the short term, and nuclear power will be re-entering the horizon of investors in technological infrastructure.

SMR Track Rise

Valar has developed small modular nuclear reactors, i.e. small plant-made power plants. Such equipment is generally considered to have shorter construction cycles and lower deployment costs than traditional large nuclear power plants.

The company used helium cooling, high-temperature cooling reactor routes and indicated that there were long-term plans to build hundreds of small modular reactors to power the data centre. However, the technology is still at an early stage, and how far from the deployment of large-scale industrialization, the market is currently inconclusive.

In addition to Valar, Kairos Power, TerraPower, supported by Bill Gates, and NuScale Power, which has received regulatory design approval from the United States, are also advancing the next generation of nuclear reactor projects, with targeted clients including scientific and technological enterprises and industrial users.

The custody proceedings are still pending.

While advancing technology and finance, Valar has taken a stronger position on regulators. Last year, the company, along with several states and other start-ups, sued the United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission, arguing that regulators should not apply the same lengthy licensing process to small-scale test reactors as to large commercial nuclear power plants.

The case is currently pending, and the parties have suspended their proceedings on several occasions. This trend, according to the report, suggests that the dispute may be moving in the direction of reconciliation.