HGP Intelligent Energy plans SPAC deal at $1B valuation to bring retired Navy reactors to AI data centers

HGP Intelligent Energy, a Texas-based startup with an ambitious plan to convert retired US Navy nuclear reactors into commercial power plants, is pursuing a merger with a special purpose acquisition company that would value the combined entity at roughly $1B, according to people familiar with the matter. The deal would give HGP a public listing and access to capital markets at a moment when every major tech company on the planet is scrambling for reliable power to feed AI workloads. The CoreHeld Project and its economics At the center of HGP’s pitch is the CoreHeld Project, which proposes taking pressurized water reactors from decommissioned aircraft carriers and submarines and retrofitting them for commercial electricity generation. Each installation would deliver between 450 and 520 MW of power, enough to run a hyperscale data center campus with room to spare. Total capital costs for a CoreHeld site are estimated between $1.8B and $2.1B. That translates to roughly $1M to $4M per megawatt, a figure that looks almost modest compared to the ballooning budgets of conventional large reactor builds. For context, new nuclear construction projects in the West have routinely blown past $1...