The United States is entering a new phase in clean energy. It now combines artificial intelligence (AI), advanced data centers, and nuclear power in one system. At the center of this shift is Project Matador, aka Donald J. Trump Generating Plant, a plan to build an 11-gigawatt (GW) energy and data campus in Texas.
The project aims to become one of the largest clean energy and computing developments in the world. Led by Fermi America LLC, it could change how data centers get their power. Its mix of nuclear, solar, natural gas, and battery storage is designed to provide steady, low-carbon energy for the growing AI and chip industries.
The Vision Behind Project Matador
Project Matador is one of the most ambitious U.S. energy projects in decades. It will cover about 5,855 acres in Carson County, Texas, under a 99-year lease with Texas Tech University.
Source: Fermi America
The site will host four Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear reactors, along with solar panels, batteries, and natural gas plants. Together, these systems will generate up to 11 GW of reliable power for large data centers and chip factories built on the same campus.
Fermi America plans to begin construction in 2026. The first nuclear reactor could start running by 2031, with all 4 completed by 2038. The total cost could reach $70–90 billion.
The nuclear reactors will use the proven AP1000 design, known for its strong safety features. The site near Amarillo was chosen for its stable geology, existing infrastructure, and strong power connections. The area also sits next to a long-standing federal facility, which helps with environmental and safety approvals.
Building the AI Energy Campus of the Future
Project Matador is more than a power plant – it’s a purpose-built, vertically integrated energy campus designed to power America’s next wave of digital industries: hyperscale AI data centers and advanced semiconductor manufacturing. By combining four Westinghouse AP1000 nuclear reactors, large-scale battery storage, combined-cycle natural gas, and on-site solar, Matador delivers round-the-clock, zero-carbon electricity within a single, secured perimeter.
This model solves major challenges for high-tech facilities. AI systems and chip fabs demand continuous, multi-gigawatt power – often beyond what traditional grids can supply. Matador’s behind-the-meter setup keeps energy onsite, delivering reliable power directly to data centers and manufacturing plants. Its nuclear generators supply up to 4.4 GW of steady baseload, while batteries provide backup and frequency control, guarding sensitive compute clusters from outages. Natural gas and solar add further resilience, keeping operations stable even during grid stress.
For data centers, this means 24/7 uptime and low-carbon power for demanding AI, cloud, and security workloads. Hyperscale operations can use over 3 GW each, so every minute of reliable energy protects millions in value and supports technology leadership. Google, Meta, and Nvidia benefit directly from Matador’s self-sustaining grid, bypassing public utility risks.
Semiconductor manufacturing is also strengthened. Chip fabs are North America’s most power-sensitive assets – a single disruption can halt modernization and risk supply chains. By hosting robust, secure energy onsite, Matador drives U.S. onshoring under the CHIPS Act, boosting sector growth and jobs.
Alongside these benefits, the campus reduces grid strain, lowers emissions, and creates thousands of jobs. Fermi America’s initiative sets a new standard for strategic nuclear and hybrid energy infrastructure, anchoring America’s future in clean, resilient, and tech-driven power. With 11 GW of clean electricity, Matador reduces foreign dependence and supports federal goals for secure compute and chip operations – driving over 50,000 jobs and future-proof growth. Its integrated model establishes a global benchmark for sustainable, strategic industrial power.
Building Global Partnerships: South Korea’s Role in the U.S. Nuclear Comeback
The company signed important deals in South Korea for nuclear technology and component production. It signed a FEED (front-end engineering design) deal with Hyundai Engineering & Construction. This deal will kick off the engineering of four AP1000 reactors.
Also, it reached a deal with Doosan Enerbility. This agreement secures long-lead components, such as reactor pressure vessels and steam generators. These moves lock in key suppliers and help protect the project’s timeline and cost estimates.
Toby Neugebauer, Co-founder & CEO of Fermi America, stated:
“Doosan Enerbility and Hyundai E&C have been waiting for an American company to stop power pointing about nuclear and start building it. Their firm commitment to Fermi America positions us for action, leveraging their track record of success to build clean, new nuclear power at the velocity and scale the President demands and the U.S. requires.”
Fermi notes that it was the first company to file a combined operating license that the NRC accepted for review in September 2025. The company thanked Texas leaders. It also highlighted the state’s new $350 million funding for the Texas Advanced Nuclear Energy Office (TANEO) to support the build.
These partnerships will boost the AP1000 reactor supply chain. They will also strengthen connections between the U.S. and Korea in advanced energy development.
The AP1000, built by Westinghouse Electric Company, is one of the world’s safest and most efficient nuclear reactor designs. It uses passive safety systems that can cool the reactor without human action or external power. This makes it ideal for modern, high-security facilities like Project Matador.
Fermi America will fund construction through a mix of private equity, REITs, and federal loan guarantees. This method shares financial risk. It also makes sure the project follows strict safety and environmental rules.
Nuclear Power’s Return and How UROY Stands to Gain From It
Projects like Matador show that nuclear power is making a comeback in the U.S. After years of slow progress, nuclear energy is now viewed as essential for clean power and energy security. The rise of AI, cloud computing, and electric vehicles has sharply increased demand for dependable electricity.
For investors, this creates new opportunities in uranium and nuclear development. Uranium Royalty Corp (UROY) is one company well-positioned to benefit. Based in Canada, UROY owns royalties and streams linked to uranium mines around the world. This means it earns a share of revenue from uranium production without operating the mines itself.
UROY also holds physical uranium reserves, giving it direct exposure to fuel price increases. As new reactors like those at Matador move closer to construction, demand for uranium will rise. UROY’s business model allows investors to gain from this trend without the high costs or risks of running a mining company.
UROY benefits when uranium prices climb or when more nuclear power plants sign fuel contracts. The U.S. currently produces less than 10% of the uranium it needs and depends heavily on imports. To fix this, the government is supporting efforts to rebuild the domestic uranium supply chain.
Source: EIA
As new U.S. nuclear projects start – including Matador, TerraPower’s Natrium reactor, and Oklo’s advanced fission systems – the need for uranium fuel will grow. That means higher demand for UROY’s royalty partners and assets.
Even though UROY is not tied to a single project, its portfolio rises in value as the global nuclear market expands. If the U.S. adds dozens of gigawatts of nuclear capacity by 2040, UROY could see major growth in both royalty revenue and asset value.
The Bigger Picture: Clean Power for the Digital Era
Project Matador shows how the energy transition and the digital economy are coming together. AI and chip manufacturing need clean, steady power — and nuclear energy can deliver it.
For the U.S., this kind of project also supports national security, ensuring that data and computing systems run on domestic, reliable energy.
For investors, companies like UROY offer a simple way to invest in the nuclear revival. They benefit as more projects move forward and uranium demand increases.
The next generation of clean energy will go beyond solar and wind. It will combine nuclear stability, renewable flexibility, and digital intelligence, all working together to power the AI age.
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For most businesses, the emissions that matter most sit outside their own walls. Scope 3 emissions, everything generated across your value chain, from the suppliers who make your inputs to the customers who use your products, typically make up the majority of a company’s total carbon footprint. Under the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), those value-chain emissions now have to be measured and disclosed with a rigour that spend-based estimates alone struggle to satisfy. This guide sets out how to improve Scope 3 data accuracy for CSRD: the calculation methods open to you, how to move from estimates to verified supplier data, and how to govern that data so it holds up to audit.
A carbon credit is a commitment that extends well into the future. The tonne of CO₂ compensated for today from a nature-based carbon project must remain out of the atmosphere for good, which means the forest behind the credit has to remain standing long after the transaction is complete. For any buyer, this raises a defining question: What ensures that the forest endures?
What replaced the cheap REDD credit on the boardroom slide deck, and why procurement is leading the rewrite.
Three years ago, a corporate slide showing a portfolio of cheap REDD+ credits could carry a board meeting. The number was big, the price was low, and the press release wrote itself. Today, that same slide gets sent back with questions. The questions are uncomfortable, the answers are unclear, and your general counsel is suddenly in the room.
Conventional carbon offsets are not dead. The voluntary carbon market retired 202 million tonnes in 2025, and the Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing survey published in January 2026 confirmed that interest from corporate buyers remains substantial. What changed is the credibility threshold. The integrity floor has risen, the disclosure scrutiny has tightened, and the buyer profile has shifted. This article tracks what changed, what sophisticated buyers now ask before signing, and what serious corporates are putting on the board slide instead.
What boards used to buy, and why it stopped working
The 2020 to 2022 model was simple: buy a large tranche of avoidance credits at low single-digit prices, retire them against the company footprint, announce the carbon-neutral claim, and move on. Most of those credits came from REDD+ projects, renewable energy installations in countries where the renewable energy was already economic, or methane projects with thin documentation.
Several things broke that model. Academic research published in 2023, including a widely cited Science paper, found that the majority of REDD+ credits issued under the most common methodologies did not represent additional reductions when tested against rigorous counterfactuals. The Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative published its Claims Code of Practice, which sets requirements for what companies can credibly claim from credit use. The European Union finalised its Green Claims Directive, restricting how companies can describe products as climate-neutral. France’s Décret 2022-539 already restricts carbon neutrality advertising. California’s AB 1305 imposes disclosure requirements on any company making net-zero or carbon-neutral claims while doing business in the state.
The collective effect: the cheap credit no longer buys the announcement, and the announcement now carries litigation risk.
The integrity reset: ICVCM, VCMI, and what changed
The Integrity Council for the Voluntary Carbon Market published the Core Carbon Principles in 2023 and began assessing methodologies against them in 2024. The first methodologies received the CCP label later that year. The point of the label is to give corporate buyers a defensible quality screen they can cite in disclosure.
The Voluntary Carbon Markets Integrity Initiative complements this on the demand side. Its Claims Code of Practice defines what a buyer can say (Silver, Gold, or Platinum claims, with associated requirements) based on the quality of credits used and the underlying decarbonisation strategy. Together, CCP and VCMI build a quality stack: CCP on the supply, VCMI on the claim, with the science-based target sitting underneath both.
The reset is not a ban on offsets. It is a ratchet. Credits that meet the new bar continue to clear; credits that do not, do not. The Morgan Stanley survey found that 61% of current buyers like the CCP label concept but that supply of labelled credits remains limited. That supply constraint is now visible in pricing.
What sophisticated buyers ask before they sign
The questions on the procurement scorecard have changed. A 2022 buyer might have asked about price, vintage, and project type. A 2026 buyer asks five different questions before any of those.
What does the counterfactual look like, and who validated it.
What is the permanence regime, and what is the buffer pool exposure.
What is the leakage risk, and how is it mitigated.
What rating has the project received from the independent ratings agencies (Sylvera, BeZero, Calyx Global), and what was the rationale.
What is the documentation discipline that survives an audit four years from now when the procurement team that signed the contract has moved on.
If the vendor cannot answer those five questions on a first call, the conversation ends. Conversely, if the vendor can answer them with documented specificity, the conversation often expands beyond a single transaction toward a multi-year engagement.
Where this leaves your near-term commitments
You probably have near-term commitments that pre-date the integrity reset. Public targets to be carbon neutral by 2025 or 2030. Product-level claims that ran in last year’s marketing. Disclosed reduction trajectories that assumed continued access to cheap credits.
You have three workable paths. The first is to re-baseline your strategy, replacing the most exposed credits with higher-quality alternatives and adjusting the public language to match what you can defend. The second is to shift the underlying spend from offsetting outside your value chain to investing inside your value chain, where reductions count against Scope 3 directly and the audit trail is cleaner. The third is to keep the strategy and absorb the risk, which is increasingly the most expensive option once you price in litigation, restatement, and reputational exposure.
Most serious buyers are choosing the second path. It moves the carbon spend from a compliance cost to a procurement and resilience investment, and it removes the central failure point of the legacy model: the disconnect between where the emissions occurred and where the reductions sat. Nature-based supply chain investments, structured under the GHG Protocol Land Sector and Removals Standard and aligned to the SBTi FLAG Guidance, are the asset class that fits this brief. They generate inventory-grade reductions, they produce audit-grade documentation, and they survive the new claim restrictions because the carbon math sits inside the value chain that the disclosure already covers.
If you are reassessing a carbon strategy under the new integrity bar, or rebuilding a board narrative that has to survive a more skeptical audience, the carbon and sustainability experts at Carbon Credit Capital can help. The Dual-Value Model gives you a defensible alternative to legacy offset purchases, with the documentation and operational integration that survives the procurement scorecard and the audit. Schedule a consultation.
