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WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is providing $17.5 billion to speed the development of 10 new large nuclear reactors to meet the demand for power created by data centers.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright cited “tremendous interest” among developers of data centers that would buy the power, as well as utilities and energy companies. Construction of the nuclear reactors could begin by 2030 and they could be operational by the mid-2030s, Wright and other officials said Tuesday.

“This is the start,” Wright said on a call with reporters. “We’re going to move with the players that are ready to stand up and move quickly. Once that supply chain is up and running, do we think there will be dozens of these built going forward? I’d be very surprised if there were not.”

Entergy Corp. CEO Drew Marsh said in early May that the utility is studying the expansion of the utility’s nuclear power operations. Entergy Corp. provides power to more than 3 million customers and oversees Entergy operations in Arkansas, Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas.

Natural gas or solar power generation alone will not meet the expected demand for electricity in the United States, Marsh said.

“I don’t think there’s any way that you get there without nuclear,” Marsh said at the time. “You’re going to need new nuclear.”

Entergy Corp. owns and operates five nuclear reactors at four locations including two reactors at Arkansas Nuclear One in Russellville, and one each at Grand Gulf Nuclear Station in Mississippi, the River Bend Station in St. Francisville, La., and the Waterford 3 Steam Electric Station in Killona, La.

Marsh said the biggest challenge in building new reactors includes the construction costs and risks and said the federal government or large data centers could potentially help with construction costs.

Most U.S. nuclear power plants were built between 1970 and 1990. Only two new large reactors have been built from scratch in the United States in recent decades. Those two reactors, at Georgia Power Co.’s Plant Vogtle, were completed years later and billions of dollars over budget. The 10 new reactors will use the same design, Westinghouse’s AP1000.

Wright said the Plant Vogtle project struggled because of bad planning, supply chain problems and the COVID-19 pandemic. But, he said, the reactor design is “robust and sound.”

“By building in volume and at multiple locations, we think we will create and stand up a large supply chain and build a lot of construction expertise,” Wright said. “We expect the timing and cost of these plants to well outperform what was done on Vogtle.”

Seven utilities and energy companies signed letters of intent that identified sites, the Energy Department said. The agency plans to pick five, which would host two reactors at each site. The federal financing would be used to purchase nuclear components with long lead times, and are not construction loans.

The department declined to name the utilities involved or the states they are in, calling it premature until the selections are made. It did not give a timeline for making those selections.

“We have not applied for loans with the U.S. Department of Energy to support new nuclear projects,” an Entergy Arkansas spokesman said Tuesday.

President Donald Trump set a goal of quadrupling domestic production of nuclear power within the next 25 years, and he has signed executive orders to speed development. The administration is working to advance new nuclear technologies, such as small modular nuclear reactors.

Dan Sumner, president and chief executive officer of Westinghouse, said industrialized nuclear power needs to be built at fleet scale, in order for the United States to lead in artificial intelligence, advanced manufacturing and the industries that will define the next century.

Critics of building more nuclear reactors say they’re too expensive and riskier than other low-carbon energy sources.

Travis Fisher, director of energy and environmental policy studies at the libertarian Cato Institute think tank, said the Energy Department has the authority to issue these loan guarantees, but he doesn’t think the executive branch should be so heavily involved in the electricity sector.

If the past is any indication, the next administration will use similar authorities to favor a different set of energy resources, he added. “Remove the state barriers and the federal favoritism and let companies build the power plants that pass the market test,” Fisher wrote in an e-mail Tuesday.

Data centers used 4% to 5% of the nation’s total electricity in 2024, a share that could nearly triple by 2028, according to government estimates. Some analysts predict nationwide electricity use to rise as much as 20% in the next decade, with data centers a big reason.

The Energy Department said the loans could speed up the development of these 10 reactors by up to three years and lower construction costs. Its goal is for all 10 to be under construction by 2030, to start providing power in the mid-2030s.

The utilities and Westinghouse will be expected to contribute up to $5 billion in equity in total across the five, two-reactors projects. Wright said his department provides up to $17.5 billion in loans, or $3.5 billion per project, in debt to pair with the equity. He said it’s “very, very low risk to the American taxpayers.”

Information for this article was contributed by Sydney Sasser of the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.

FILE – Energy Secretary Chris Wright testifies before the Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on the budget request for the Energy Department on Capitol Hill, May 13, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta, File)