Nuclear Power Could Be AI's Ultimate Energy Solution. Here's Your Complete Investment Checklist
As the construction of AI data centers in the United States booms, energy demand is rising. To address the power shortfall brought by the development of AI, the Trump administration is planning to deploy tens of billions of national funds to finance the construction of new nuclear power plants.
U.S. Energy Secretary Chris Wright stated at a conference hosted by the American Nuclear Society that the Department of Energy's Loan Programs Office (LPO) will allocate most of its funding to support nuclear plant construction. The LPO has authority for hundreds of billions of dollars in financing assistance, including loan guarantees for projects that struggle to obtain bank financing.
In addition, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang said on December 4 that energy is becoming the next global bottleneck for artificial intelligence. He predicted that, over the next decade, small modular reactors (SMRs) will be widely used to power AI systems, which significantly boosted the share prices of some nuclear-power stocks.
Which companies along the nuclear power value chain are worth watching?
From the upstream to downstream, the SMR nuclear power value chain spans all stages—from upstream fuel and uranium mining, to midstream research and construction, and downstream operations and waste management.
Upstream: Materials and processing
The upstream primarily involves the supply of essential raw materials, key equipment, and nuclear fuel required for nuclear development, mainly including uranium mining and uranium enrichment.
Specifically, uranium mining includes companies such as $Cameco (CCJ.US)$, $Uranium Energy (UEC.US)$, $Energy Fuels (UUUU.US)$, $Denison Mines (DNN.US)$, and $NexGen Energy (NXE.US)$ ; nuclear fuel processing includes $Centrus Energy (LEU.US)$ .
High concentration on the supply side may lead to a structural shortage that widens after 2030. Once utilities sign long-term contracts at scale, uranium prices could rise stepwise, potentially launching a decade-long bull market cycle.
Midstream: Design, R&D, and construction
The midstream includes design, research and development, and construction.
$NuScale Power (SMR.US)$ is the first publicly listed SMR nuclear power company. NuScale's core product is a small modular pressurized water reactor. Its reactor modules are immersed in an underground pool and rely on conventional pressurized water reactor technology, representing one of the faster-moving commercialization paths for SMRs.
$Oklo Inc (OKLO.US)$ 's Aurora eactor is a liquid-metal-cooled, metallic-fuel fast reactor, part of the Generation IV fast reactor category.
Notably, this year Oklo was selected as a potential power supplier for Eielson Air Force Base in Alaska and received a notice of intent to award from the Defense Logistics Agency's energy office. However, after the market close yesterday, the company announced a stock offering of up to 1.5 billion dollars, and its shares fell about 4 percent in after-hours trading.
$NANO Nuclear Energy (NNE.US)$'s technology is a Generation IV thermal neutron reactor. It uses helium as the coolant and features “walk-away safe” characteristics—able to shut down safely even with complete loss of external power or operator evacuation.
$BWX Technologies (BWXT.US)$ focuses on reactor component manufacturing and nuclear technologies. Unlike SMR vendors such as NuScale and Oklo, BWXT is a large equipment supplier and technology services provider, mainly serving government and commercial sectors with reactor components, nuclear fuel, and defense-related nuclear technologies, with customers including the U.S. government (for example, supplying reactors for Navy nuclear submarines).
Downstream: Operations, sales, and waste management
The downstream primarily covers nuclear plant operations and energy supply, with participants including $Constellation Energy (CEG.US)$ , $Vistra Energy (VST.US)$, $American Electric Power (AEP.US)$ , $Southern (SO.US)$ , $Exelon (EXC.US)$, $Duke Energy (DUK.US)$ , $Entergy (ETR.US)$, and $Public Service Enterprise Group (PEG.US)$ (PSEG).
Additionally, electrical equipment providers include $GE Vernova (GEV.US)$, $Eaton (ETN.US)$, $Honeywell (HON.US)$, $Emerson Electric (EMR.US)$, and $Graham (GHM.US)$.
From COP28's call to “triple nuclear capacity by 2050,” it is clear that global demand for low-carbon, stable baseload power is pushing the nuclear sector into a new cycle of robust deployment.
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