X-energy shares surge 27% on debut after expanded IPO

X-energy saw its shares surge on its first day of trading on Nasdaq, opening at $30.11 and closing at $29.20, representing a 27% increase over its initial public offering price of $23 per share.

Investor demand for nuclear energy appears to be gaining strong momentum. Even before the debut, the company had already increased its IPO pricing range from the originally proposed $16 to $19 per share during its investor roadshow. By the end of its first trading session, X-energy reached a market valuation of approximately $11.5 billion.

Interest in this scale in a nuclear startup would have been unexpected just a few years ago. Around five years earlier, the nuclear sector was still dealing with the fallout from major project delays and substantial cost overruns tied to newly completed reactors. Two major nuclear facilities were finalised in Georgia — one in the late 2010s and another in the early 2020s — with combined construction costs reaching roughly $30 billion.

In the early 2020s, many nuclear startups were still in their early stages, and at least one leading company faced serious regulatory challenges. Those issues contributed to ongoing concerns that the industry had not yet resolved its longstanding structural problems.

Now, however, investor sentiment suggests growing confidence that companies like X-energy and others in the sector may have found ways to navigate these historical obstacles.

A significant driver behind this renewed optimism is the rapid expansion of AI-powered data centres. The demand for computational resources — particularly GPUs — requires vast amounts of electricity. While energy sources such as solar, wind, battery storage, and natural gas currently help meet these needs, major technology companies are actively seeking additional solutions. Nuclear energy has emerged as one of the alternatives under consideration, with its compact footprint seen as a potential advantage for large-scale data centre operations.

Nuclear energy has long held promise as a stable contributor to the U.S. power grid, yet it has not reached its full potential. At present, around 18% of the country’s electricity supply comes from nuclear sources. Despite its reliability, rising construction costs have made nuclear one of the more expensive forms of energy generation.

X-energy is focusing on smaller-scale innovation with its 80-megawatt reactor design, which is significantly smaller than traditional nuclear plants. The company is betting that modular reactor construction can help reduce overall costs, while data centre operators are exploring powering individual campuses with multiple reactors to achieve greater reliability and redundancy.

Amazon has already indicated plans to purchase up to 5 gigawatts of energy capacity from X-energy over the coming decade. Meanwhile, Dow is expected to receive the company’s first operational power plant.

Construction has already begun on X-energy’s fuel production facility. Although the company has not yet begun construction of its first reactor site, investors appear confident it can help reshape the nuclear energy sector and overcome challenges that have persisted for decades.