Amazon's Xe-100 Pact: MOU Backs 5 GW-Plus Plan With Up-to-$50B Aim

X-energy reports third-quarter 2026 results on Nov. 12, with a call at 8:00 a.m. ET, and its Aug. 25, 2025 Xe-100 agreement with Amazon, KHNP and Doosan Enerbility still carries no reactor order that Voltgrid has found.

That agreement among X-energy, Amazon, Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power (KHNP) and Doosan carries the program's biggest numbers: an aim to mobilize up to $50 billion and Korean support for Amazon and X-energy's target of more than 5 GW of new US nuclear by 2039. What has followed it in binding form is narrower. X-energy has reserved Doosan factory capacity and placed a first parts order, both for its own first projects, and Amazon is a party to neither.

The technology

The Xe-100 is a high-temperature gas-cooled reactor: helium carries heat out of a core of TRISO fuel pebbles, hot enough to raise industrial steam as well as make electricity. Each unit is rated 80 MWe from 200 MWt of heat, X-energy says. The Aug. 2025 release put the Energy Northwest site in Washington at four units at first, with plans for 12. Amazon's Oct. 19, 2026 page puts its Indiana project with AEP at a target of 12 units and 960 MW.

The deal and the money

X-energy's release calls the Aug. 25, 2025 document a strategic collaboration agreement covering reactor design, supply chain, construction planning, investment strategy, long-term operations and work abroad. Doosan chairman Park Ji-won called it an MOU in the same release, and X-energy's Dec. 18, 2025 release also calls it a memorandum of understanding. X-energy's April 2026 prospectus describes it as a joint compact "outlining the intention to collaborate" on deploying Amazon's order book in the US. We found no price, committed sum or unit order disclosed under it.

The $50 billion is something the parties "aim to mobilize" in public and private money; it is not committed capital. The 5 GW by 2039 is a target, which Amazon's Vibhu Kaushik, head of worldwide energy at AWS, framed as nuclear the partnership would help "enable". Doosan agreed to secure the manufacturing capacity the Xe-100 needs.

The first binding step came on Dec. 18, 2025. X-energy and Doosan signed a binding reservation agreement for Doosan to make main power system steel for 16 Xe-100s: reactor pressure vessels, steam generator pressure vessels and other large steel parts. X-energy committed what it called a significant financial investment, with no amount given, to hold that capacity within set timeframes for its first two commercial projects. Doosan also committed to a new SMR plant in Changwon able to support about 20 Xe-100s a year at full output. According to Doosan, as reported by POWER Magazine, the 16 sets are tied to Dow's four-unit, 320 MWe Long Mott plant and the 12-unit Cascade project, and follow-up agreements to start manufacturing are still to come. A reservation holds factory slots; it is not yet an order for forgings.

The second step was the first parts order. On Nov. 4, X-energy, Alleima and Doosan announced the first Xe-100 steam generator tubing order, for Long Mott, with no quantity, value or delivery dates, as Voltgrid reported.

Licensing and timeline

The first Xe-100 licence step is done, but for Dow, not Amazon. On Nov. 9 the NRC approved the construction permit for four Xe-100s at Dow's Seadrift site, X-energy and Dow said; it lets them build, not operate, as we reported. Dow expects to consider a preliminary investment decision in 2027, full construction waits on a final investment decision, and first delivery is targeted for the early 2030s. Cascade has engineering under way, with Fluor picked on Nov. 5 for the nuclear island as Voltgrid reported, but no NRC construction permit.

What it means for Amazon

Amazon's binding ties to the Xe-100 run through X-energy, not through the Korean partners. The prospectus says X-energy granted Amazon first-priority allocation of Xe-100 manufacturing queue slots across 2031 to 2039, for utilities and independent power producers that would own the plants, plus a right of first refusal on part of scheduled delivery. It also says Amazon is not obligated to purchase. Doosan, an equity investor in X-energy per the prospectus, holds the supply role, while we found no named project with a KHNP role in the sources we read.

The only binding manufacturing step so far, X-energy's reservation with Doosan for 16 sets of components, reportedly covers Dow's Long Mott and Cascade, and only Cascade is linked to Amazon. Amazon's more than 5 GW by 2039 remains a target, and its queue rights carry no obligation to buy. Everything else toward that target still depends on new orders, new licences and Amazon's offtake contracts with utilities.

What to watch

On the Nov. 12 call, the useful answers are the size or value of the tubing order, whether Doosan has signed the follow-up manufacturing agreements, and whether any of the $50 billion aim has turned into committed money. After that, Dow's preliminary investment decision in 2027 and a Cascade construction permit application, which has not yet been filed, are the steps that would turn the partnership's targets into supply.