Plans have been revealed for a multi-gigawatt data center campus powered by nuclear small modular reactors (SMRs) in Utah.

First reported by NPR and the Salt Lake Tribune, Valar Atomics is planning a development known as Project Beehive on more than 9,000 acres of land held under the Bureau of Land Management near Price in Carbon County, some 199 miles southeast of Salt Lake City.

The campus would include data centers and some 456 small nuclear reactors (SMRs), along with a facility to produce nuclear fuel and others for storing nuclear waste, according to a proposal from the company to federal regulators seen by NPR.

The SMRs could potentially total 9.6GW of electrical capacity, and produce thermal heat for potential reuse.

Construction could reportedly start as soon as the end of the year, with the first reactors coming online in 2028 and fully built out by 2032. Though multiple companies are working on their own designs, no company has yet put an SMR into commercial operation.

Some 650 acres of the project would be state land, as well as federal land. Some details of Valar’s proposals were included in a land use agreement shared in a recent Utah Trust Lands Admistration meeting.

The Bureau of Land Management's Utah office confirmed it had received an application from the company.

"We are currently reviewing the application for completeness," the bureau told NPR. As the application moves through the required National Environmental Policy Act process, "we will make sure the public has meaningful opportunities to provide input," it added.

"No construction begins before permits and approvals, and the public process leads along our internal targets set the pace," Valar told NPR.

Founded in 2023, Valar Atomics is developing a Generation IV high-temperature gas reactor (HTGR).

Valar Atomics’ 5MW advanced reactor design, Ward 250, completed a zero-power fueled criticality demonstration at the Utah San Rafael Energy Lab in Emery County in June. The company is aiming to deploy 25MW reactors at Project Beehive.

In July, the company powered up the test reactor and used a simple thermoelectric system to run a single Nvidia GPU.

Jurassic Spark

The Tribune also reported that Altigen Energy, which develops natural gas-power plants for data centers, is targeting an area east of Wellington for its 1,200-acre “Jurassic Spark” project.

The site would initially feature 250MW of natural gas capacity, eventually scaling to 3GW.

Wellington is a city in Carbon County, around six miles south of Price.

Aligen filed an application for the project with Carbon County back in March.