Britain courts private cash to fund 'golden age' of nuclear-powered AI

The British government today launched the Advanced Nuclear Framework to attract private investment in next-generation nuclear technology for factories and datacenters.

The framework aims to accelerate development of advanced modular reactors to power the AI infrastructure boom and provide clean energy for economic growth.

The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) will create a "pipeline" of projects meeting readiness criteria, offering a "concierge-style" service to help the developers navigate UK planning, regulations, and secure private investment.

DESNZ says emerging nuclear technologies like small modular reactors (SMRs) can be prefabricated in factories, enabling faster, cheaper assembly using skilled jobs across multiple regions. These reactors can provide clean energy to the grid or directly to industrial users, it claims.

SMRs, as Reg readers likely know, are newfangled designs with a power capacity of up to about 300 MW per unit, about a third of the generating capacity of traditional atomic ...