Nuclear startup Valar Atomics is seeking approval to build a data center campus powered by hundreds of small modular reactors on federal land in Utah, according to documents reviewed by NPR.
The project, called "Project Beehive," would sit on more than 9,000 acres of Bureau of Land Management land near Price, Utah. According to the company's proposal to federal regulators, the site would include data centers alongside roughly 456 small nuclear reactors, plus a facility to produce nuclear fuel and others to store nuclear waste. Together, the reactors would generate around 9.6 gigawatts of electricity for the data centers, along with additional thermal heat for other industrial uses. For comparison, the entire state of Utah currently produces only about 4 gigawatts of electricity on average, with peak summer capacity around 10 gigawatts.
Valar has separately sought roughly 650 acres of Utah state trust land for the same project. The Bureau of Land Management's Utah office confirmed it received Valar's application and said it is "currently reviewing the application for completeness," adding that the public will have "meaningful opportunities to provide input" as the project goes through the National Environmental Policy Act review process.
The project's timeline calls for non-nuclear construction to begin as soon as the end of this year, with the first reactors coming online in 2028 and the full site completed by 2032. Valar's reactors are rated at 25 megawatts electric each, designed to be mass-produced and installed in series so the campus can be built out in phases. By comparison, the U.S. has switched on just three new nuclear power plants since 2000, producing a combined total of around 3.4 gigawatts.
Valar has already tested a prototype at a smaller scale: its "Ward 250" test reactor, located about 30 miles from the Project Beehive site, reached criticality in June and was used in a July demonstration to generate electricity for a single Nvidia microchip.
The scale of the proposal has drawn concern from Utah environmental groups. "It's concerning to see that the Trump administration, with the support of the state of Utah, is pushing this forward on significant acreage of public lands," said Neal Clark, wildlands director at the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance. Lexi Tuddenham, executive director of the Healthy Environment Alliance of Utah, said she believes the use of federal land for the project is unprecedented and that her immediate priority is raising public awareness.