A two-year-old nuclear startup has done something no American company has done before: run an Nvidia AI chip directly off a compact nuclear reactor.
Valar Atomics Inc. demonstrated its Ward 250 microreactor producing live power for Nvidia’s Blackwell architecture on July 1, 2026, at a small data center in Utah. The milestone marks the first known instance of a next-generation nuclear reactor supplying electricity directly to AI compute infrastructure in the United States.
The reactor uses helium cooling instead of water, targeting near-zero water consumption, a design choice that addresses one of the most contentious environmental impacts of data center operations.
Valar was founded in 2023 by Isaiah Taylor, who is 27 years old. The company achieved zero-power criticality in November 2025, the technical threshold where a reactor sustains a controlled nuclear chain reaction without producing meaningful heat output. The July 1 demonstration was the next step: generating usable electricity from that reaction.
Valar is one of roughly 10 startups participating in a US Department of Energy pilot program aimed at accelerating microreactor licensing, with a demonstration deadline set around July 4, 2026. The Ward 250 became the second advanced reactor to achieve criticality under the program, following Antares Nuclear’s Mark-0 at Idaho National Laboratory in early June.
The company has raised approximately US$600 million across three rounds: a US$19 million seed round in early 2025, a US$130 million round in November 2025, and a US$450 million raise in 2026 that valued the company at US$2 billion. Backers include Palmer Luckey, founder of Oculus and Anduril, and Shyam Sankar, chief technology officer of Palantir.
The demonstration comes as the AI industry faces mounting pressure to secure dedicated, carbon-free power for data centers that are consuming electricity at an unprecedented rate. Google reported a 37 percent increase in electricity consumption in 2025, while the broader industry is racing to secure long-term power agreements with nuclear operators.
Sources: Valar Atomics powers Nvidia AI chip with nuclear microreactor in US first (Crypto Briefing, July 1, 2026); Department of Energy celebrates second advanced reactor achieving criticality (DOE, June 18, 2026)