Crusoe and Aalo Plan a Nuclear-Powered AI Data Centre

The First Nuclear-Powered AI Factory Starts at 10 Megawatts

Crusoe and Aalo Atomics plan a reactor-powered data centre at Idaho National Laboratory. The test reactor produces 10 megawatts of electricity, the commercial version 50, and the deployment target is the end of 2029.

Jul 30, 2026Source: Crusoe

Crusoe and Aalo Atomics announced a partnership on 30 July aimed at deploying what they describe as the first nuclear-powered AI factory. The plan runs through Idaho National Laboratory, where Aalo's Aalo-X test reactor is rated at 10 megawatts electric and a second, commercial-scale reactor is under construction.

The timeline

In 2027, an initial Crusoe Spark modular data centre proof-of-concept at the lab, powered by an Aalo reactor. By the end of 2029, the target is Aalo Pods paired with a commercial 50 MWe XMR plant at Crusoe data centres. Aalo has raised more than $136 million.

Read the scale honestly

Ten megawatts is very small. The Kentucky campus announced the previous day contemplates up to 4.6 gigawatts of dedicated generation — the Aalo-X is roughly 0.02% of that. Even the 50 MWe commercial unit is a rounding error against a gigawatt-class site. This is a demonstration, and the companies present it as one.

Why it is interesting anyway

Nearly every AI power announcement this year has been gas plus batteries, because gas can be built on the timeline the compute demands. Nuclear has the better long-run economics and the worse schedule. Doing the first deployment at a national laboratory — where the regulatory pathway and site licensing already exist — is the standard way to compress that schedule, and it is the part of this that is replicable.

What is not settled

No cost, no power purchase agreement, and no capacity commitment beyond the demonstration. "Goal of deploying" is doing real work in the announcement's own title.

Why It Matters

Every gigawatt-scale AI campus announced this year runs on gas because nuclear cannot be built fast enough. A 10 MW reactor at a national lab is the small, unglamorous step that has to work before anything larger is credible — and 2029 is the earliest anyone is claiming.