Prometheus & SMRs: Decoding the 2025 Strategy to Power AI with Nuclear Energy
Industry Adoption: Prometheus Hyperscale Cements Nuclear as the Future of AI Data Centers
Between 2021 and 2024, the concept of powering data centers with Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) was largely theoretical, marked by industry-wide exploration and significant skepticism. The market witnessed the high-profile collapse of NuScale’s flagship UAMPS project in late 2023 due to soaring costs, casting a long shadow over the economic viability of SMRs. During this period, companies like Prometheus were more known for adjacent technologies, such as Prometheus Fuels’ ambitious but delayed e-fuel production, which secured a $1.5 billion valuation in 2021 but struggled to deliver commercial products. The primary connection was one of shared interest, with tech giants like Google and Amazon beginning to publicly explore nuclear options, but concrete offtake agreements for SMRs remained elusive.
The landscape shifted dramatically in 2025. This year marks a critical inflection point where speculative interest has converted into tangible commercial strategy, led by data center developers. Prometheus Hyperscale, the infrastructure-focused subsidiary, has emerged as a key enabler. The company’s May 2025 announcement of a non-binding letter of intent (LOI) with SMR developer Oklo for 100 MW of power is a landmark event. This move demonstrates a clear strategic pivot, positioning Prometheus not just as a data center builder, but as a sophisticated energy integrator. By creating a diversified energy portfolio—using low-carbon natural gas with partners like PureWest Energy as a bridge fuel, co-locating with ENGIE’s renewables in Texas, and planning for SMR baseload power—Prometheus is creating a replicable blueprint for powering the AI revolution sustainably. This strategy of providing a strong demand signal de-risks SMR development and signals a new phase of adoption where energy-intensive industries are becoming anchor customers for next-generation nuclear power.
Prometheus Investment Analysis: Building Demand for Advanced Nuclear
Prometheus Hyperscale’s investment activities are not directed at SMR technology itself, but rather at building the massive data center infrastructure that creates the non-negotiable demand for it. The capital deployed is a direct precursor to its nuclear energy ambitions, funding the very facilities that will require 24/7, carbon-free baseload power. By developing gigawatt-scale campuses, Prometheus is establishing the commercial appetite necessary to justify and secure future Power Purchase Agreements (PPAs) with SMR developers like Oklo.
Table: Prometheus Hyperscale’s Infrastructure Investments Creating SMR Demand
| Partner / Project | Time Frame | Details and Strategic Purpose | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Texas Data Center Co-location | Announced Sep 2025 | Investment in deploying liquid-cooled data centers alongside partner ENGIE’s renewable assets in Texas, with first sites operational in 2026. This creates a second major power demand hub, diversifying geographic risk and creating future opportunities for SMR deployment in a new region. | ENGIE, Prometheus to Develop Next-Gen Data Centers in … |
| Wyoming Data Center Development | Announced May 2025 | Development of a flagship data center campus planned to exceed 1.2 GW of capacity. This massive infrastructure build-out is the primary driver for its interest in SMRs and underpins the commercial case for the Oklo partnership. | Net-Zero Data Centers in Wyoming? Hyperscaler … |
| Prometheus Materials Debt Financing | July 2024 | Raised $6 million in debt financing to support the decarbonization of building materials. While not directly related to SMRs, it reinforces the broader corporate commitment to sustainability that guides its energy strategy. | Prometheus Materials raises $6M in debt financing |
| Prometheus Materials Series A | June 2022 | Closed an $8 million Series A round to accelerate the commercialization of zero-carbon bio-concrete. This investment highlights an early focus on decarbonizing the physical infrastructure supply chain. | Prometheus Materials raises $8 million to decarbonize the … |
| Prometheus Fuels Series B | Sep 2021 | Achieved a $1.5 billion valuation in a Series B round led by Maersk to develop e-fuels. This high-valuation funding round established the “Prometheus” brand as a major player in clean technology, despite subsequent delays in fuel delivery. | Maersk throws its weight behind unicorn electrofuels … |
Partnership Ecosystem: Building a Bridge to a Nuclear-Powered Future
Prometheus Hyperscale’s strategy is defined by a sophisticated network of partnerships designed to address the immediate, interim, and long-term power needs of its data centers. While the 2025 letter of intent with Oklo for SMR-based power is the ultimate goal, the company has assembled a full ecosystem of collaborators to create a viable, low-carbon energy solution today. These partnerships provide bridge fuels, energy storage, and carbon offsetting, making its data centers attractive to tenants while the SMR supply chain matures.
Table: Prometheus Hyperscale’s Strategic Energy Partnerships
| Partner / Project | Time Frame | Details and Strategic Purpose | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Spiritus, Casper Carbon Capture | Oct 2025 | A strategic partnership to create carbon-negative data infrastructure in Wyoming by integrating carbon removal credits, offsetting emissions from the natural gas bridge fuel and paving the way for a fully decarbonized energy supply that includes SMRs. | Prometheus Hyperscale, Spiritus, and Casper Carbon … |
| Conduit Power | Sep 2025 | Partnership for hybrid bridge and backup power solutions, ensuring reliability during the development phase before large-scale power sources like SMRs become operational. | Prometheus Hyperscale and Conduit Power Form Partnership … |
| ENGIE North America | Sep 2025 | Exclusive agreement to co-locate data centers with ENGIE’s renewable and battery assets in Texas. This aligns digital infrastructure with the clean energy transition and establishes a new geographic hub for power demand. | ENGIE collaborates with Prometheus Hyperscale to co- … |
| Oklo | Jul 2025 | Signed a non-binding Letter of Intent for a potential PPA to secure 100 MW of power from Oklo’s SMRs. This is the company’s most direct and significant move to secure firm, carbon-free nuclear power for its data centers. | Oklo and Vertiv collaborate on nuclear data center power … |
| XL Batteries | May 2025 | Partnership to deploy non-lithium, organic flow batteries for long-duration energy storage, enhancing resilience and supporting the integration of intermittent renewables while awaiting firm power sources like SMRs. | Prometheus Hyperscale and XL Batteries Partner to … |
| PureWest Energy, Frontier Infrastructure | May 2025 | Partnership for a zero-carbon power solution in Wyoming, using low-carbon natural gas and carbon capture as a bridge fuel, explicitly establishing a path toward a fully decarbonized supply that includes future SMRs. | Prometheus Hyperscale, PureWest Energy and Frontier … |
| Lumen Technologies | Dec 2024 | Selected Lumen to provide network connectivity for its data centers, ensuring the high-performance network infrastructure required for AI workloads is in place. | Lumen Partners with Prometheus Hyperscale to Enhance … |
| Maersk | Sep 2021 | Maersk Growth led a venture investment in Prometheus Fuels to develop e-fuels for shipping, establishing the “Prometheus” brand in the clean tech investment landscape. | Maersk invests in electrofuels startup company |
Geography: Wyoming as the Epicenter for Prometheus’s Nuclear-AI Nexus
Between 2021 and 2024, Prometheus’s activities were less geographically defined, centered on the venture capital landscape of its parent company, Prometheus Fuels. However, the 2024 rebranding and launch of Prometheus Hyperscale signaled a deliberate geographic concentration. All significant commercial activity related to its SMR strategy has been anchored in Wyoming. The state’s supportive regulatory environment for both energy development and data centers, coupled with abundant land and existing energy infrastructure, makes it an ideal location for co-locating massive power demand with next-generation power supply.
The period from 2025 to today reveals a strategic geographic expansion. While the flagship 1.2 GW project in Evanston, Wyoming, remains the core of its SMR ambitions, the September 2025 partnership with ENGIE to develop AI-ready data centers in Texas marks a significant new frontier. This move diversifies its geographic footprint and creates another major power demand center that could become a future candidate for SMR deployment. This evolution from a single-state focus to a multi-regional strategy mitigates project risk and positions Prometheus to capture data center demand in multiple key US markets, strengthening the overall business case for a distributed fleet of SMRs.
Technology Maturity: From Speculative Promise to Commercial Pathway for Prometheus’s SMR Strategy
In the 2021–2024 period, SMR technology for data centers was in a pre-commercial, highly speculative phase. The market was characterized by developer announcements and broad expressions of interest from tech companies, but the technology readiness was hampered by economic and regulatory uncertainty, exemplified by the 2023 collapse of NuScale’s UAMPS project. For Prometheus, its related technologies like Prometheus Fuels’ e-fuel “Titan Fuel Forge” concept were also in a pre-commercial, conceptual stage, facing skepticism over scalability despite finalizing a commercial stack design in 2022.
From 2025 onward, the maturity of SMRs within Prometheus’s strategy has advanced from speculative to a clear commercial pathway, albeit one still in its early stages. The July 2025 non-binding Letter of Intent with Oklo for 100 MW of power represents a critical validation point. It moves the conversation from “if” to “how,” establishing a commercial framework (a PPA) and a specific capacity target. This LOI serves as a de-risking mechanism for Oklo, providing a demand signal that can help attract project financing. While the SMRs themselves are years from deployment and subject to NRC licensing, the commercial agreement structure has matured significantly. This pragmatic approach, combining operational technologies like liquid cooling and long-duration batteries with a forward-looking PPA for nuclear, shows a sophisticated understanding of technology staging and market timing.
SWOT Analysis: Prometheus Hyperscale’s SMR Strategy
Table: SWOT Analysis of Prometheus’s SMR Integration
| SWOT Category | 2021 – 2023 | 2024 – 2025 | What Changed / Resolved / Validated |
|---|---|---|---|
| Strength | Associated with high-valuation parent company (Prometheus Fuels) with a strong brand in clean technology. | Development of a comprehensive, integrated energy ecosystem via partnerships with Oklo (SMRs), PureWest (gas), ENGIE (renewables), and XL Batteries (storage). | The strategy matured from a single-technology promise (e-fuels) to a diversified and pragmatic energy integration model, making the data center offering more resilient and commercially viable today while planning for a nuclear future. |
| Weakness | Parent company (Prometheus Fuels) faced skepticism and significant delays in delivering on its core promise of commercial e-fuels, creating brand risk. | Reliance on a non-binding Letter of Intent with Oklo, which carries significant execution uncertainty. The success of the nuclear strategy is dependent on a partner’s ability to navigate regulatory and financial hurdles. | The risk has shifted from internal technology delivery (e-fuels) to external partner execution (Oklo’s SMR deployment). The LOI validates the strategy but formalizes a dependency on a nascent technology sector. |
| Opportunity | Early identification of the immense power needs of the growing data center market. | Acting as a key enabler and first-mover by sending a strong demand signal to the SMR industry, potentially securing favorable terms and capacity for its 1.2 GW Wyoming project. | The opportunity became more tangible and strategic. Prometheus Hyperscale moved from identifying a market need to actively shaping the supply solution by providing a bankable demand signal for SMRs. |
| Threat | Broad market skepticism about the economic viability of advanced clean technologies, highlighted by high SMR cost estimates and challenges in scaling DAC. | Increased competition as other major tech players (Amazon, Google) aggressively pursue SMR partnerships, and the general SMR industry risk highlighted by NuScale’s project cancellation. | The threat evolved from general market skepticism to direct competition for SMR capacity and partnerships. The failure of NuScale’s project in late 2023 provided a concrete example of the execution risks Prometheus now faces with its own SMR partner. |
Forward-Looking Insights and Summary
The data from 2025 firmly signals that Prometheus Hyperscale has committed to a nuclear-powered future for its AI data centers, moving faster and more deliberately than many competitors. The year ahead will be defined by the company’s ability to convert its strategic vision into contractual reality. For strategists, investors, and energy professionals, the single most important signal to monitor will be the conversion of the non-binding Letter of Intent with Oklo into a definitive, binding Power Purchase Agreement. This event would be a watershed moment, not just for Prometheus, but for the entire SMR industry, as it would represent one of the first firm commercial offtake contracts for an SMR-powered data center.
Market actors should also closely track construction milestones at the Wyoming campus and the operational launch of the first Texas data halls in 2026. The successful build-out of this infrastructure solidifies the power demand that underpins the business case for SMRs. Conversely, any delays could undermine confidence. While the integrated energy strategy using bridge fuels provides a buffer, the long-term competitive advantage hinges on securing SMR-based power. Expect Prometheus to explore additional SMR partnerships to diversify its technology risk, but all eyes will remain on the progress with Oklo. The success or failure of this pioneering project will serve as a critical blueprint for how the digital and energy sectors will co-evolve to meet the demands of the AI era. Tracking these intricate commercial milestones and technology-readiness signals requires dedicated market intelligence to stay ahead of the curve.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is Prometheus Hyperscale’s main strategy for powering its AI data centers?
Prometheus’s strategy is to act as a sophisticated energy integrator by building a diversified portfolio. They are creating the massive power demand required for AI by developing gigawatt-scale data center campuses, and then meeting that demand with a mix of bridge fuels (low-carbon natural gas with PureWest), renewables (co-location with ENGIE), and long-term, carbon-free baseload power from Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) through partners like Oklo.
Is Prometheus building the nuclear reactors themselves?
No, Prometheus Hyperscale’s investments are not directed at SMR technology itself. Instead, the company is focused on building the large-scale data center infrastructure that creates the undeniable commercial demand for SMRs. By establishing itself as an anchor customer, it de-risks SMR development for its technology partners like Oklo.
How is Prometheus powering its data centers before SMRs are operational?
Prometheus uses a ‘bridge’ strategy with a network of partners. This includes using low-carbon natural gas with carbon capture (with PureWest and Casper Carbon Capture), co-locating with renewable and battery assets (with ENGIE), and deploying long-duration organic flow batteries (with XL Batteries). This ecosystem provides reliable, lower-carbon power today while the SMR supply chain matures.
What is the significance of the 2025 Letter of Intent with Oklo?
The non-binding Letter of Intent (LOI) for 100 MW of power from Oklo’s SMRs is a landmark event that marks a shift from theoretical interest to tangible commercial strategy. It is Prometheus’s most direct step to secure firm, carbon-free nuclear power and provides a crucial demand signal to the SMR industry, helping to validate and finance next-generation nuclear projects.
Where are Prometheus’s main data center projects located?
The core of Prometheus’s strategy is centered on its flagship data center campus in Wyoming, which is planned to exceed 1.2 GW of capacity and is the primary driver for its SMR partnership with Oklo. In 2025, the company announced a strategic expansion into Texas through a partnership with ENGIE, establishing a second major power demand hub.
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