X-Energy shares rose 30.9% in their Nasdaq debut, valuing the company at $11.9 billion and signaling strong interest among developers of carbon-free energy that has the potential to fuel an unprecedented boom in artificial intelligence.

The Amazon-backed nuclear reactor developer sold 44.3 million shares in its initial public offering on Thursday, raising $1.02 billion. The stock opened at US$30.11.

The listing marks an important capital milestone for X-Energy as it races to deploy its “Xe-100” small modular reactors (SMRs), which industry analysts see as a key solution for the first commercial SMR electrons in the US grid by the end of the decade.

X-Energy’s debut has been supported by significant tailwinds in the power sector, as tech giants and data center developers harness advanced nuclear energy to power energy-intensive artificial intelligence infrastructure as well as meet 24/7 carbon-free energy goals.

Nuclear reactor developers can provide the kind of reliability that sun and wind – hampered by intermittency – have yet to match.

X-Energy Chief Executive Clay Sale said being a public company provided it with many benefits, including transparency with its customers and investors, equity to reward employees and the ability to invest in its supply chain and grow its business in the coming years. “We want to take this opportunity to build a bigger balance sheet that allows us to reduce the risk of getting scale.”

Tailwinds and bakers

SMRs are smaller and designed to be more cost-efficient than conventional large-scale reactors, which can take years to build and have proven prone to significant budget overspends.

X-Energy is developing its Xe-100 reactor, which uses helium as a coolant instead of water. It also has a nuclear fuel business, which will supply fuel to reactors it sells on a recurring revenue basis. Sale said this sets it apart from its competitors in providing consistent long-term income, garnering significant interest from investors.

The company, founded in 2009, has clients including Amazon, specialty chemicals group Dow and Centrica, a major UK energy services provider that owns 20% of the country’s nuclear reactor fleet.

X-Energy had previously planned to go public in 2023 through a merger with a blank-check firm backed by Ares Management, but later scrapped those plans, citing unfavorable market conditions.

Increased interest in the sector is reflected in the fact that X-Energy has closed two separate funding rounds of $700 million each since early last year, backed by major investors including Amazon, Jane Street, Ares Management Funds and ARK Invest.

IPO Market Volatility

The initial public offering market in the US has recently seen a flurry of activity. Several big names, such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX, have filed to go public in the US in the past month, offering the prospect of a strong pipeline of new listings through the rest of 2026.

The start of the year saw muted activity, as new listings were dragged down by volatile equity markets and rising tensions in the Middle East, which added to broader macroeconomic headwinds, keeping investors and aspiring public companies in wait-and-see mode.