Westinghouse signs $80B contract to meet AI demand

The partnership involves Westinghouse, Brookfield Asset Management (a subsidiary of Canada-based investment firm Brookfield Corp.), and Canadian uranium producer Cameco Corp.

The deal follows the directives set forth in the Trump administration’s May executive orders aiming to speed up development and deployment of nuclear reactors in the United States.

Westinghouse announced in July it plans to open 10 new plants in the U.S., with construction starting in 2030. To date, there are only two Westinghouse AP1000 reactors operating in the U.S.—Units 3 and 4 at Plant Vogtle in Georgia.

While Westinghouse was founded in Pittsburgh, Pa., it is currently under Canadian ownership after being purchased in 2022 under a strategic partnership between Brookfield (which owns a 51 percent stake) and Cameco (which owns a 49 percent stake), as Nuclear Newswire reported at the time.

The Trump administration is betting hard on nuclear to supply electricity for the growing number of data centers throughout the United States.

“Together with Westinghouse we will unleash American energy. This partnership embodies the bold vision of President Trump—to rebuild our energy sovereignty, create high-paying jobs, and drive America to the forefront of the nuclear renaissance,” Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnik said in a statement.

Jobs, economic growth: According to the companies, each two-unit Westinghouse AP1000 power plant creates or sustains 45,000 manufacturing and engineering jobs in 43 states, and a national deployment will create more than 100,000 construction jobs.

Future Westinghouse AP1000 sites include V.C. Summer in South Carolina, where utility Santee Cooper recently announced it's partnering with Brookfield to restart building the two AP1000 reactors that were left unfinished after Westinghouse filed for bankruptcy in 2017.