Nuclear startup Valar Atomics has applied to use more than 9,500 acres of federal land near Price, Utah, for a data center campus powered by roughly 456 small reactors, KUER and NPR reported Wednesday. The proposal, called Project Beehive, would total about 9.6 gigawatts of generating capacity and would also include a nuclear fuel production plant and a nuclear waste storage facility on site.

What Happened

The application covers more than 9,500 acres managed by the Bureau of Land Management in Carbon County, and Valar is also seeking about 650 acres of state land. Each reactor would be rated at 25 megawatts of electricity. According to the reporting, non-nuclear construction could start by the end of 2026, the first reactors could be running in 2028 and the full site could be complete by 2032.

BLM Utah confirmed it had received the application and said it is reviewing it for completeness. The agency said the public will have opportunities to weigh in through the National Environmental Policy Act process.

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Valar already operates a test reactor, the 25-megawatt Ward 250, about 30 miles from the proposed site. The unit was flown from California on a C-17 military transport aircraft in February, reached criticality in June and produced electricity for the first time on July 1.

Valar CEO Isaiah Taylor told the outlets the company is proceeding responsibly and accountably to the local community.

Why It Matters

The scale is the story. Utah's power plants generate about 4 gigawatts on average, with peak capacity of around 10 gigawatts. A single private campus producing 9.6 gigawatts would more than double the state's average output and approach its entire peak capacity, all dedicated to data centers.

The design also departs from how most nuclear plants are built. Rather than one or two large reactors, Valar proposes hundreds of identical small units, a modular approach that small-reactor developers argue can cut costs through repetition. That approach has not been demonstrated at anything close to this size, and each step from one test reactor to hundreds of commercial units carries regulatory, supply chain and financing risk.

Putting fuel production and waste storage on the same site adds further complexity, because both are among the most politically sensitive parts of the nuclear fuel cycle and have historically faced strong local and state opposition.

Local Reaction

Conservation and environmental groups raised concerns. Neal Clark of the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance criticized the Trump administration for advancing the project on a large expanse of public land. Lexi Tuddenham of HEAL Utah said the most important thing right now is making sure people know about the proposal.

Context

Technology companies have turned to nuclear power as AI data center demand outruns grid capacity, signing agreements to restart retired plants and to buy output from future small modular reactors. The federal government has also prioritized opening public land and speeding permits for energy and AI infrastructure. Project Beehive would combine both trends on a single site.

What to Watch

The immediate step is BLM's completeness review, followed by NEPA scoping and public comment periods. Beyond land access, commercial operation of hundreds of reactors would require Nuclear Regulatory Commission licensing, and the reporting did not identify any data center tenants. How regulators treat the on-site fuel and waste facilities is likely to shape how quickly, and whether, the project advances.