A federal milestone
The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has published its draft environmental review for Project Matador, a planned nuclear-powered supercomputing hub in the Texas Panhandle. NRC staff conditionally recommended approving combined licenses for four Westinghouse AP1000 reactors, provided an ongoing safety evaluation concludes successfully.
The assessment came just 15 months after Fermi America filed its application, a striking pace for a nuclear industry where federal environmental reviews typically take years.
A network independent of the public grid
Rather than relying on the public grid, the project plans a dedicated private system in Carson County near Amarillo. That network would combine commercial nuclear reactors with natural gas units, solar arrays and utility-scale battery storage.
Original plans called for an 11-gigawatt campus, anchored by 4.4 gigawatts of nuclear power, but developers recently expanded ambitions to nearly 17 gigawatts. The goal is to meet the round-the-clock power appetite of next-generation AI models and high-performance computing clusters.
What comes next
Several steps remain before safety-related construction on the reactors can begin: the NRC must publish its final environmental impact statement and complete a Safety Evaluation Report verifying that the AP1000 design suits local geology, seismic conditions and water resources. Only then will the full Commission vote on final license approval.
The project is being advanced with partners including reactor designer Westinghouse, Hyundai Engineering & Construction, ENERCON and Preferred Licensing Services. Developed across 18 million square feet in partnership with Texas Tech University, the facility is scheduled to come online in stages from the late 2020s into the mid-2030s.
