17-gigawatt Texas power project passes key hurdle for world’s largest private grid

What happened

The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has published its draft environmental review for Project Matador, an energy and artificial intelligence campus run by developer Fermi America. The positive assessment arrived just 15 months after Fermi America filed its application.

A planned nuclear-powered supercomputing hub in the Texas Panhandle has cleared a major federal regulatory hurdle. Crucially, NRC staff issued a preliminary recommendation to approve combined licenses for four Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear reactors, provided the project passes an ongoing safety evaluation.

In the nuclear industry, federal environmental reviews typically take years to complete. Reaching this stage so quickly marks significant momentum for an initiative designed to power high-demand computing facilities.