Idaho Data Center News

Jan 9, 2026

Meta Locks In Up to 6.6 GW of Nuclear Power Through Deals With Vistra, Oklo, and TerraPower

Meta announced agreements with Vistra, Oklo, and TerraPower to secure up to 6.6 GW of nuclear capacity by 2035.

Main announcement and deal scope: Meta will underwrite a suite of nuclear deals that collectively target up to 6.6 GW by 2035, including a 20-year PPA with Vistra for 2,176 MW plus 433 MW of uprates (2,609 MW total) that begin deliveries in late 2026 and reach full 2,609 MW by 2034; an Oklo-backed Aurora campus up to 1.2 GW in Pike County, Ohio (pre-construction and site work beginning 2026, first phase online as early as 2030, full 1.2 GW by 2034); and TerraPower funding for two Natrium units (690 MWe) targeted as early as 2032 plus Meta rights to energy from up to six additional Natrium units (2.1 GW) targeted by 2035.
Background, implementation details, and context: Meta’s support includes prepayments and long-term PPAs to shift early-stage capital and risk onto Meta to help developers secure fuel, permits, and financing; Vistra’s three plants were acquired as part of a $3.4 billion Energy Harbor transaction (March 2024); PJM capacity prices signaled tight markets (clearing at $269.92/MW-day and hitting the $329/MW-day cap in subsequent auctions), underscoring the near-term need for firm capacity in the PJM region.

Jan 2, 2026

State Broadband Bills of 2025: A Legislative Review

State legislatures across the United States enacted and considered broadband-related legislation in 2025; fewer than 140 of more than 600 proposed bills became law.

Main actions: States enacted laws prioritizing infrastructure and permitting reforms, pole and rights-of-way access, criminal penalties for theft/vandalism, state broadband funding, and data center incentives. Notable enacted measures include Hawaii H 934 (established a state Broadband Office and programs, enacted in June and backed by $400 million in combined funding), West Virginia SB 907 (expanded the Economic Development Project Fund to allow up to $25 million annually for broadband incentives and up to $125 million annually for broadband loan insurance) and West Virginia HB 2014 (signed in April; created microgrid districts with zoning/permitting exemptions and special property tax treatment for qualifying projects).
Additional details and timelines: States also raised criminal penalties (e.g., Oklahoma classified willful damage to a critical infrastructure facility as a Class D3 felony with fines up to $100,000 and prison up to 10 years; Louisiana authorized fines up to $50,000 and prison up to 20 years; California AB 476 increased penalties for knowingly buying illegally obtained scrap metal to $5,000). Other enacted programs include California SB 338 (a $2 million telehealth pilot), New Mexico SB 126 (Rural USF increased from $30 million to $40 million), and Oregon’s device support up to $100 in Lifeline-related assistance. At least 37 states passed data center incentives in 2025 and over 1,000 AI-focused bills were introduced nationwide, with ~38 states adopting or enacting roughly 100 AI measures in 2025.

Dec 25, 2025

DOE’s ‘Genesis Mission’ Enlists AI to Double U.S. Research Productivity in a Decade

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has launched the “Genesis Mission” to build an integrated AI platform connecting its 17 national laboratories and to “double the productivity and impact of American science and engineering within a decade.”

Main announcement and implementation details: The DOE will build the American Science and Security Platform connecting 17 national laboratories and leveraging roughly 40,000 DOE scientists, engineers, and technical staff; the executive order sets an aggressive 270-day timeline to demonstrate initial operating capability for at least one national science and technology challenge and formalized 24 collaboration agreements announced Dec. 18, 2025. The platform will provide high-performance computing, secure cloud-based AI computing environments, domain-specific foundation models, and secure access to federal scientific datasets.
Background, priorities, and near-term actions: The mission targets three priority areas—American Energy Dominance (advanced nuclear, fusion, grid modernization), Advancing Discovery Science (six domains including biotechnology, semiconductors, quantum, critical materials, advanced manufacturing, nuclear), and Ensuring National Security. Pre-existing collaborations include an INL–AWS project (July 2025) for AI-powered nuclear reactor design; DOE issued two RFIs (open until Jan. 14, 2026 and Jan. 23, 2026). The executive order does not specify funding levels (implementation subject to appropriations) and requires annual reporting to the President beginning one year after signing.

Dec 24, 2025

10 biggest environmental stories of 2025

Columbia Insight (Chuck Thompson) published a year-end roundup listing the “10 biggest environmental stories of 2025,” summarizing major events and policy actions affecting the Pacific Northwest and broader U.S. environment.

Main summary: The piece catalogs federal rollbacks and regulatory changes (EPA 31 deregulatory provisions, President Trump’s memorandum withdrawing from a 2023 Columbia River salmon-restoration agreement), major weather and disaster events (record floods and drought-driven water shortages), and environmental incidents including Idaho’s copper treatment that left up to 90% invertebrate mortality in treated Snake River stretches.
Additional details and timelines: It documents the USDA plan to move the Forest Service Pacific Northwest headquarters to Fort Collins, Colo. (announced July), Washington State House funding cuts to the Gorge Commission for the 2025–27 biennium (27% reduction), data center expansion concerns (271 existing water-using data centers in OR/WA plus proposed new projects), and EPA actions described as the “biggest deregulatory action in U.S. history“ (March announcement of 31 provisions).

Dec 19, 2025

AI and Latency: Why Milliseconds Decide Winners and Losers in the Data Center Race

The author argues that data center operators must prioritize low-latency infrastructure for AI inference.

Main announcement/action: The piece recommends deploying low-latency inference infrastructure (small, metro-proximate inference zones) and optimizing fiber route quality, redundancy, backplane architecture, heat, and power to serve real-time AI inference workloads; it cites a latency example of 20 milliseconds to 200 and notes NVIDIA’s prediction that inference will be 100x the size of training workloads in the near future.
Background and details: Training workloads can be placed in remote, power-rich locations (examples given: North Dakota, Idaho) because they tolerate latency, while inference must be near end-users; the article notes AWS charges a premium for latency-optimized inference SKUs, and cites Anthropic’s coding assistant overload as an example of capacity pressure causing degraded performance.

Dec 18, 2025

Advanced Nuclear Developers Raise New Capital as 2025 Investment Hits Record Levels and Demonstrations Near

Radiant, Last Energy, and ARC Clean Technology announced the closing of major private funding rounds in mid-December 2025 to accelerate demonstration, factory-built manufacturing, and regulatory pathways for microreactors and SMRs in North America and the UK.

Fundraises & near-term uses: Radiant raised more than $300 million (Series D) on Dec. 17, 2025 to scale commercialization, break ground on the R-50 factory in Oak Ridge, Tennessee (construction slated early 2026) and test its Kaleidos microreactor at Idaho National Laboratory (DOME) in 2026 with initial deployments targeted in 2028; Last Energy closed an oversubscribed Series C of more than $100 million (Dec. 16, 2025) to fund its PWR-5 pilot at Texas A&M–RELLIS (DOE Reactor Pilot Program, target criticality 2026) and parallel UK licensing for PWR-20 commercial units (site-licensing target Dec. 2027); ARC closed a Series B (Dec. 16, 2025) to advance the 100-MWe ARC-100 deployment, DOE programs, Canadian project development, and KHNP collaboration.
Background, partners, and milestones: The rounds include strategic and VC investors (e.g., Draper Associates, Boost VC, Founders Fund, Astera Institute) and advisers (Orrick); Radiant announced customer commitments including Equinix (20 Kaleidos units) and DoD agreements (Defense Innovation Unit/Department of the Air Force), plus HALEU fuel commitments with the U.S. DOE and a commercial enrichment contract with Urenco; ARC completed Phase 2 of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission Vendor Design Review (July 2025) and formed NuARC with Nucleon Energy for Alberta deployments; multiple sector comparables cited include TerraPower ($650M Series C) and X-energy ($700M Series C-1) earlier in 2025.

Dec 16, 2025

How Data Centers Became the Hidden Backbone of Our Modern World

Stepchange Ventures’ co-founders, writing in the MCJ Newsletter, outline how data centers have evolved into critical infrastructure, how AI is driving unprecedented power demand, and why this creates both grid constraints and opportunities for more sustainable, abundant energy and compute.

Data centers emerged from early internet hubs like MAE-East and One Wilshire into hyperscale regions such as Ashburn, Virginia, where data-center-zoned land can reach $6M per acre, while overbuilt fiber networks and subsequent advances like virtualization, cloud (EC2 in 2006), containers, and serverless steadily increased hardware utilization and enabled Web 2.0 and hyperscale cloud growth.
Power efficiency innovations—including PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) invented by Christian Belady (typical mid-2000s PUE ≈ 2.5, pushed toward 1.1 by hyperscalers) allowed internet traffic to grow 17x (2010–2020) with relatively flat energy use, but the rise of AI GPUs and 5GW-scale builds now creates 10–100x more power-hungry data centers, intersecting with broader load growth from industrial expansion and electrification, and prompting calls to reengineer chips, grids, and infrastructure for an abundant, sustainable era.

Dec 10, 2025

Wind and solar power frozen out of Trump permitting push

The Trump administration has frozen approvals for major onshore wind and solar projects, requiring Interior Secretary Doug Burgum to personally sign off on new renewable decisions and effectively stalling new permits since July.

Main action: The Interior Department’s policy mandates personal sign-off by Secretary Doug Burgum, resulting in only one solar project approved on federal lands since January and no permits since July; Wood Mackenzie identified 18 gigawatts of solar projects on federal lands that were canceled or inactive this year, and the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) estimates more than 500 solar and storage projects are threatened.
Background and concrete details: The Bureau of Land Management canceled the environmental review for Esmeralda 7 (seven solar farms across 62,000 acres); Boulder City currently receives $21 million/year from leases and could gain $3 million/year from two projects now stalled; agencies including the Army Corps and US Fish and Wildlife Service have tightened reviews (Army Corps prioritizing projects by energy-per-acre, and Fish and Wildlife restricting access to a planning tool for solar and wind).

Dec 2, 2025 · RMI

The Five Types of Electro-Industrial States

Rocky Mountain Institute presents a typology classifying US states into five electro-industrial archetypes.

Main announcement/action: RMI authors classify states into five archetypes — Momentum Hubs (Arizona, California), Fast‑Track Builders (Texas, Georgia, South Carolina, Florida, Colorado, Utah, Nevada, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Ohio, Idaho), Policy Champions (New York, Michigan, Virginia, Oregon, Washington, North Carolina, Wisconsin, Illinois, Maryland, Minnesota, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania), Open‑Door Starters (Vermont, Wyoming, Nebraska, Kansas, North Dakota, South Dakota, Mississippi, Iowa), and Early‑Stage Starters (Missouri, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Maine, Alabama, Louisiana, Indiana, West Virginia, Montana, Arkansas). The typology is based on policy reliability, regulatory ease, economic capacity, physical infrastructure (power and interconnection), and market momentum.
Background and details: The analysis highlights that market momentum and policy reliability should operate in tandem; low regulatory burdens accelerate short-term investment but may strain local housing and infrastructure without accompanying policy ambition. The authors reference the report GREASE Lightning as a policy playbook for designing investment-led, state-driven electro-industrial strategies.

Sep 17, 2025

Our Investment in Aalo

MCJ has joined Aalo’s $100 million Series B led by Valor Equity Partners to back Aalo’s factory-manufactured extra-modular nuclear plants for data centers.

Primary announcement: MCJ joined Aalo’s $100 million Series B (led by Valor Equity Partners) to support Aalo’s factory-produced 50-megawatt pods (five 10-megawatt reactors, “XMRs”). Aalo operates a vertically integrated factory in Austin, aims for 52-week deployment timelines for data-center sites, and celebrated the Aalo-X groundbreaking beside INL; Aalo is one of 11 companies selected to the DOE President’s Nuclear Reactor Pilot Program targeting at least three test reactors by July 4, 2026.
Background and regulatory context: Founders and senior leaders include Matt Loszak (CEO, serial entrepreneur), Yasir Arafat (CTO, led MARVEL and Westinghouse eVinci work, achieved DOE reactor authorization in ~30 months), and Jon Guidroz (SVP, former Director of Energy at Microsoft/Google/AWS). The article cites May 2025 executive orders driving 18-month NRC review timelines, designation of AI data centers as ‘critical defense facilities’, a 400 GW nuclear target by 2050, and references the DOE’s $900M SMR program that benefits Aalo’s commercial pathways.

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