By Crystal Staebell and Will Polen

Small modular reactors offer the promise of carbon-free, firm baseload power, shorter construction timelines than traditional nuclear plants, and the flexibility to phase capital investment over time as capacity is added. As licensing pathways for these technologies advance, two especially promising routes to commercialization are meeting the rapidly growing power demands of AI and data centers and supporting the production of aviation fuel.

Powering the AI Boom Without Burning More Gas

The most common and widely discussed use has commonly been incorporating SMRs to support the growth of artificial intelligence. The rise of artificial intelligence has created an energy demand that few anticipated at this scale or speed. U.S. data centers consumed 183 terawatt-hours of electricity in 2024, which is more than 4% of the country's total power consumption, and the IEA projects that figure will grow by 133% to reach 426 TWh by 2030. A single large AI campus today can require 100 to 500 megawatts of continuous power. This load requires a continuous and reliable energy source to power through at all hours of the day.

Currently, natural gas picks up most of the slack, supplying over 40% of U.S. data center electricity. That's a practical problem for grid operators trying to keep up. Wind and solar, while growing, produce power intermittently, and AI workloads do not.

SMRs address this directly. Typically ranging from 5 to 300 megawatts, they are factory-built, transportable, and scalable. A data center operator can deploy a single unit initially and add capacity as demand grows. Unlike natural gas, SMRs don't expose operators to volatile fuel markets. Unlike renewables, they produce power around the clock.

The tech sector has been investing in this future. Amazon is partnering with Dominion Energy and X-energy to deploy 5 gigawatts of SMR capacity by 2039. Google has partnered with Kairos Power to bring up to 500 megawatts of SMR capacity online by 2030. Oklo has secured letters of intent for up to 750 megawatts of power for data center clients across the U.S. These are not exploratory conversations, but rather they are capital commitments from some of the most high-profile energy buyers in the world.

The Aviation Problem That Batteries Can't Solve

Another unique use of SMRs has recently been using SMRs to power the production on sustainable aviation fuel. Flying is hard to decarbonize. The energy density required to lift a commercial plane off the ground and keep it airborne for hours is far beyond what today's batteries can provide. That leaves the industry searching for a fuel that is low-carbon, energy-dense, and scalable. Sustainable aviation fuel fits that description, but producing it at volume requires enormous, reliable quantities of clean energy.

That's where SMRs enter the picture. SAF can be produced by combining hydrogen that is generated through nuclear-powered electrolysis with captured carbon dioxide to create a synthetic, low-carbon drop-in fuel. The process requires consistent, high-temperature heat and electricity, exactly the kind of steady output that SMRs are designed to deliver. In recent news, Rolls-Royce partnered with UK-based Equilibrion to explore commercial-scale SAF production using SMRs, a pairing that signals growing industry confidence in the combination.

The timing matters. Fuel prices remain volatile, as domestic airfares have surged dramatically in response to geopolitical instability, and aviation is responsible for roughly 2.5% of global CO2 emissions, a share that is growing. Meeting international climate targets for aviation will require SAF at a scale that intermittent renewables, by their nature, struggle to support. Nuclear-derived fuel production offers what the industry needs: reliability, scalability, and low carbon intensity.

Why These Partnerships Matter Beyond the Projects Themselves

These two technologies provide a pathway for commercially deploying a new and technology like SMRs as first adopters, as these industries will create a proof point that lowers the perceived risk for future projects. Public perception shifts. Government investment directed at AI infrastructure or aviation decarbonization flows, at least in part, toward the nuclear supply chain that supports them. Regulatory momentum builds. Workforce pipelines develop. Each deployment creates a proof point that lowers the perceived risk of the next one. 

These concerns deserve honest engagement, but the regulatory environment is improving. The ADVANCE Act, signed into law in 2024, is designed to streamline NRC licensing and reduce the time and cost of bringing new reactors online. And the factory-built, modular nature of SMRs is specifically designed to address the cost overrun problem that followed previous large-scale nuclear construction.

The energy transition will accelertate as technologies reinforce each other. SMRs are already at the center of that story.