Canada-based ARC Clean Technology, a leading developer of advanced nuclear technology, and Swiss-American infrastructure company Deep Atomic have signed a memorandum of understanding (MOU) to jointly explore the deployment of ARC’s advanced small modular reactor (SMR), the ARC-100, to power data centres and AI infrastructure.
The companies plan to jointly evaluate sites where ARC-100 reactors can be deployed in close proximity to Deep Atomic’s hyperscale infrastructure projects. The MOU outlines a framework for collaboration including site identification, feasibility assessments, and engagement with potential customers across North America.
“Our mission is to accelerate the deployment of advanced nuclear for 21st-century digital infrastructure,” said Deep Atomic CEO William Theron. “By partnering with ARC, we can offer our customers a pathway to fully decarbonized, 24/7 energy that meets the performance, security, and sustainability needs of AI-era data centres.”
“Data centres are rapidly becoming one of the world’s fastest-growing sources of electricity demand,” said Bob Braun, Chief Operating Officer at ARC Clean Technology. “The ARC-100 is ideally suited for this emerging market — it provides 100 megawatts of safe, carbon-free power with high thermal output and reliability, making it a perfect fit for mission-critical, high-density digital infrastructure. We are extremely excited to bring together our technology with Deep Atomic’s expertise in project development for the next generation of AI infrastructure.”
The ARC-100 is a 100 MWe integrated sodium-cooled fast reactor with a metallic uranium alloy core. The design is based on the Experimental Breeder Reactor-II (EBR-II) fast reactor prototype which operated at the USA’s Argonne National Laboratory from 1961 to 1994. ARC Nuclear signed an agreement with GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy in March 2017 to collaborate on the development and licensing of an SMR using proprietary technology from GEH’s PRISM reactor, which is also based on the EBR-II.
The technology is being advanced in partnership with New Brunswick Power (NB Power) at their Point Lepreau site in New Brunswick. In 2023, NB Power submitted a Licence to Prepare Site application to the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission (CNSC) for a commercial demonstration of the ARC reactor, and the utility is also considering ARC technology as part of a plan for additional SMR capacity at the Lepreau site.
At 100 MWe/286 MWt, the ARC-100 design is a fivefold scale up of the 20 MWe output of the EBR-II based on the knowledge base of the Fast Flux Test Facility’s 400 Megawatts thermal reactor. The ARC-100 fuel design is based on the proven performance of metallic fuel in the EBR-II. The 99 fuel assemblies each containing 217 fuel pins are placed inside the reactor core within the reactor vessel and remain in place for 20 years. During refuelling, the irradiated fuel assemblies will be transferred to the used fuel storage racks within the reactor vessel and new fuel assemblies will be loaded into the core.
ARC’s website says the ARC-100 reactor “incorporates operating, technical, and safety experience accumulated from a historical worldwide fleet of 20 fast neutron reactors in existence since the 1950s with over 450 reactor-years of operating experience.
However, all fast reactor projects in Europe and North America were essentially abandoned in the 1970s and 1980s and had effectively ceased in Europe and the US by the 1990s. Although interest in fast reactor technology is now reviving in Europe and the USA, both through collaborative projects and government support for private company initiatives, it remains at the design phase. The projected operation dates for the ARC-100 may, therefore, prove to be optimistic. Currently fast reactor development continues apace only in Russia, China and India, where there are now five fast reactors in operation and five more under development.
