Amazon locks in 20 years of nuclear power as VIRTUS raises £2.45bn and Indonesia halts a 640MW campus
Amazon signs a 20-year nuclear deal at Calvert Cliffs, the US issues its first commercial SMR construction permit, VIRTUS closes £2.45bn of financing, and West Java halts BDx's AI campus over permits. What it means for hiring.
The week in 30 seconds
- North America: Amazon signed a 20-year, 690MW nuclear power deal with Constellation, and the NRC issued the first US commercial SMR construction permit.
- Europe: VIRTUS closed a £2.45bn financing package to build in the UK and continental Europe.
- Asia Pacific: West Java's governor halted BDx's 640MW AI campus a week after groundbreaking, over missing environmental and building permits.
The headline story
Power is now the deal behind the deal. On 30 September Constellation and Amazon signed a 20-year power purchase agreement at the Calvert Cliffs nuclear plant in Maryland: 690MW contracted, including a 190MW uprate due between 2030 and 2032, with more than $3bn of investment supporting the plant's relicensing.
The day before, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved a construction permit for TVA's BWRX-300 small modular reactor at Clinch River, Tennessee: the first commercial SMR construction permit in the US, with operation targeted for 2033.
Talent signal: hyperscalers now need nuclear and energy markets deal leaders in-house, and developers need executives who can sit across from a utility or a reactor vendor as an equal. Nuclear licensing and project delivery leadership was already scarce; data centre demand makes it scarcer.
AI infrastructure watch
The GPU and AI factory moves of the week, and the leadership they need. More on our AI infrastructure page.
Anthropic signs an $11.6bn compute deal with Akamai
AI labs are now buying capacity from edge and CDN providers as well as hyperscalers and neoclouds, in a seven-year deal expandable to about $20bn (ITPro).
Talent signal: capacity and infrastructure delivery leaders who can serve AI lab customers at scale.
Meta extends its GPU capacity with Firmus into Southeast Asia
Meta's deal for capacity built on Nvidia's DSX platform shows hyperscalers renting AI factories from neoclouds across the region (The Star).
Talent signal: GPU fleet, reliability and site operations heads in Batam and Malaysia.
Submer and ACES bring immersion cooling to Saudi AI builds
The MoU targets high-density AI facilities with liquid and immersion cooling (W.Media).
Talent signal: thermal engineering leaders with immersion and direct-to-chip experience in the Gulf.
Nuclear becomes the AI power story
Amazon's 20-year Calvert Cliffs deal and the first US commercial SMR permit point to how the largest AI campuses will be powered in the 2030s (Constellation).
Talent signal: energy executives who can link nuclear supply to AI campus programmes.
North America
Amazon and Constellation sign a 20-year nuclear deal at Calvert Cliffs
The agreement covers 690MW, funds uprates and a licence extension, and sits alongside a retail supply agreement for Amazon's PJM operations (Constellation).
Talent signal: hyperscaler nuclear and energy markets deal leads.
The NRC issues the first US commercial SMR construction permit to TVA
The permit covers construction of a 300MWe BWRX-300 at Clinch River; TVA still needs a separate operating licence (Neutron Bytes).
Talent signal: nuclear project delivery and licensing executives.
Akamai signs an $11.6bn compute deal with Anthropic
Anthropic will buy mainly CPU-based cloud capacity from Akamai over seven years, with the contract expected to start in the second half of 2027 (ITPro).
Talent signal: large-scale capacity planning, supply chain and colocation procurement leaders at Akamai.
DOE selects $1.9bn of grid projects to unlock more than 23GW
The Department of Energy selected 31 projects across 26 states, about $5.25bn including cost-share; three name data centres or AI loads as beneficiaries (Enerdata).
Talent signal: transmission and interconnection leaders at utilities and developers.
SoftBank completes its take-private of DigitalBridge
DigitalBridge is now a SoftBank subsidiary, run as a separately managed platform under Marc Ganzi, at about $3.1bn of equity (SoftBank).
Talent signal: possible board and C-suite changes across DigitalBridge portfolio companies.
Europe
VIRTUS closes £2.45bn of financing
VIRTUS Data Centres secured £2.45bn from 13 banks, including a £1.2bn green capex facility, to fund its Saunderton and Slough builds and expansion in continental Europe (Standard Chartered, DCD).
Talent signal: construction directors and continental country MDs as VIRTUS builds beyond the UK.
CX Tech files plans for a 1GW campus at Chapelcross
CX Tech applied for planning permission in principle for eight buildings of about 120MW each at the former Chapelcross nuclear site near Annan, which it values at £16.5bn, with more than 1,000 objections lodged within 48 hours (ITV).
Talent signal: gigawatt campus development directors and stakeholder relations leaders, an already thin UK pool.
Middle East & GCC
Submer and ACES agree to build AI-ready data centres in Saudi Arabia
Submer and ACES Group signed an MoU covering design and build, retrofits and liquid and immersion cooling for high-density AI facilities; capacity and value were not stated (W.Media).
Talent signal: liquid cooling and thermal engineering leads, and Saudi delivery managers.
Asia Pacific
West Java halts BDx's 640MW AI campus
Governor Dedi Mulyadi ordered construction to stop until environmental (AMDAL) and building (PBG) permits are issued, citing a reported water draw of about 384 litres per second (The Star, via Reuters).
Talent signal: Indonesia government affairs and environmental permitting leads.
Meta signs for GPU capacity at Firmus's Southeast Asian AI factories
Meta extended its use of Firmus beyond Melbourne to capacity built on Nvidia's DSX platform in Southeast Asia, days before Firmus's planned IPO (The Star).
Talent signal: neocloud site operations heads and GPU fleet reliability leaders.
Goodman withdraws a 90MW Sydney project after local opposition
Goodman cited a significantly changed policy environment and community feedback in dropping its A$1.2bn Lane Cove project; its other Sydney sites continue (The Star).
Talent signal: planning and stakeholder engagement experience is now a deciding skill in Sydney.
Andhra Pradesh says it has agreements for 6.5GW
IT minister Nara Lokesh said the state has signed agreements for 6.5GW of data centre capacity by 2030, including Google's Visakhapatnam campus (Deccan Chronicle).
Talent signal: construction directors and utility interconnection leads in Visakhapatnam.
New money
| Who | What | Amount | Region | Source |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Akamai and Anthropic | Seven-year compute agreement | $11.6bn | North America | ITPro |
| VIRTUS Data Centres | Financing from 13 banks, including a £1.2bn green capex facility | £2.45bn | Europe | Standard Chartered |
| SoftBank | Completed take-private of DigitalBridge | About $3.1bn equity | North America | SoftBank |
| Amazon and Constellation | Investment behind the Calvert Cliffs nuclear deal | $3bn+ | North America | Constellation |
| US Department of Energy | Grid project selections | $1.9bn | North America | Enerdata |
New capacity
| Project | Region | Size | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Andhra Pradesh agreements | Asia Pacific | 6.5GW by 2030 | Deccan Chronicle |
| CX Tech, Chapelcross | Europe | About 1GW (planning stage) | ITV |
| Amazon and Constellation, Calvert Cliffs | North America | 690MW of nuclear power | Constellation |
| TVA, Clinch River SMR | North America | 300MWe | Neutron Bytes |
The T4X view
Two halts and a withdrawal in one week, in Indonesia and Sydney, alongside record financing and nuclear deals elsewhere. Capital is not the constraint; consent is. The developers who keep their timelines will be the ones with senior people who have taken projects through permitting and community opposition before. That experience rarely sits on a CV headline, and it is worth searching for deliberately.