A waterless AI data center? A big experiment is under way in rural Utah

Originally Published: 02 JUL 26 13:23 ET

By Ben Winslow

Click here for updates on this story

    ORANGEVILLE, Utah (KSTU) -- A nuclear power startup and an artificial intelligence computing company are partnering to try to create a "waterless" data center.

At an event here on Wednesday, NVIDIA debuted a chip fully powered by Valar Atomics' small modular nuclear reactor. It was used to launch a website to demonstrate its capabilities when scaled up. The website is accessible here when the reactor is powered up.

Valar Atomics founder Isaiah Taylor said it would not use water. Instead, helium cools it.

"Our architecture reactor that we’ve built here operates at higher temperatures which does not make water cooling necessary," he told FOX 13 News. "On NVIDIA’s side, they’ve worked out an architecture for their cooling systems which operates at higher temperatures as well, once again allowing for air cooling and a closed-loop system."

Valar Atomics has been working on its small modular reactor in a sandbox environment at the state of Utah's San Rafael Energy Lab. The company announced last month it had achieved "criticality," a milestone for nuclear power development and beating President Trump's July 4 deadline for nuclear power pilot projects.

Under his "Operation Gigawatt" initiative to expand energy production in Utah, Governor Spencer Cox has pushed to introduce nuclear power to meet growing energy demands. Companies have been setting up various projects related to nuclear power across the state. So far, Valar Atomics is the first to have a working reactor.

As of Wednesday, when FOX 13 News toured the reactor, company officials said it was only generating 100 kilowatts of electricity. But Taylor said the plan was to begin scaling up.

"Over the next couple of years here in Emery County, you’ll see us take the next steps towards have a full commercial system," he said.

Valar Atomics and NVIDIA's partnership for a waterless AI data center is something being watched by Gov. Cox's Office of Energy Development. The state has seen large public protests over celebrity investor Kevin O'Leary's "Stratos Project" data center development in Box Elder County. The public pushback, with concerns about impacts to the environment and the Great Salt Lake in particular, has forced the governor to issue an executive order setting guardrails around data center development.

"You have to use our resources responsibly, or else we’re not going to let you do it. It’s always been that way and it’s going to continue to be that way," said Emy Lesofski, the director of Utah's Office of Energy Development.

Asked if she believed Valar Atomics and NVIDIA could achieve what they wanted to with a "waterless data center," she told FOX 13 News: "We're standing here today. A lot of people had skepticism about what we could do if we worked together, and we're standing today at the San Rafael Energy Lab where we have a test reactor that is producing power and a power a chip. I would never say no."

Taylor said he believed it could be a solution to data center concerns.

"We believe that this is the way forward. We know that the United States needs to be competitive in artificial intelligence," he told FOX 13 News. "AI factories and scaling it out is a national strategic priority for the United States. But we need to do it without taxing local communities of water and power and that’s exactly what we’re proving today."

NVIDIA went further in announcing plans for a future AI factory in Emery County, something that generated huge cheers from the crowd (though no timeline has been set for it). Community leaders have been largely supportive of Valar Atomics' project, saying they have communicated extensively about their plans.

"It's great for our local community, not only the job base but the tax base as well," said Emery County Commissioner Jordan Leonard. "They’re hiring our local folks and just excited they’re here and the new technology with energy."

Rep. Carl Albrecht, R-Richfield, who sponsored the legislation to allow nuclear power development in the state, told FOX 13 News he believed this is a good idea.

"We’re going to save water for you guys up north in the Great Salt Lake and we’re going to build some AI data centers down here in rural Utah that’ll help the economy," he said. "I think it can be done."

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

The-CNN-Wire
™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.