Brian Matthews has an inconvenient answer for anyone planning to open a power-hungry data center tomorrow: You cannot simply order a nuclear reactor and have it delivered.
“It doesn’t exist,” Matthews [pictured above] told Refresh Miami.
At least, not yet. Matthews, the founder and CEO of Palm Beach Gardens-based Ampera, is trying to change that by developing a nuclear microreactor that can be built in a factory, transported to a customer and deployed in places where a sprawling power plant would never fit.
The destination is nuclear. The journey there starts with something more readily available.
Ampera calls its strategy “Power Now, Nuclear Next.” The company is developing three energy products around a common power-conversion platform. Its first systems would turn recovered industrial heat or heat from conventional fuel into electricity. Once Ampera’s reactor is licensed and ready, the company could swap in its nuclear module while keeping much of the original equipment in place.
In other words, customers would not have to sit in the dark waiting for the nuclear regulators to finish their paperwork.
“They want power now,” COO Robert Frost said. “They don’t want it four years from now.”
That urgency is being driven in large part by artificial intelligence. The data centers powering the AI boom require enormous amounts of electricity, while new power plants and transmission lines can take years to build. Add concerns about emissions, land and water consumption, and suddenly the server racks are arriving faster than the infrastructure needed to keep them humming.
Matthews believes Ampera can help close that gap. Its platform uses supercritical carbon dioxide to convert heat into electricity. Under intense pressure and heat, the carbon dioxide behaves partly like a liquid and partly like a gas, allowing the system to generate power with more compact equipment than a traditional steam cycle. Matthews said Ampera believes it can approach 60% efficiency.
Then comes the nuclear part.
Ampera is designing a sealed microreactor intended to operate for decades without refueling. The reactor would also be subcritical. In layman’s terms, that means the nuclear reaction cannot sustain itself without an external neutron source, providing an extra layer of safety.
The result is meant to be less concrete monument, more incredibly sophisticated container: a factory-built power source that could serve an AI data center, travel aboard a ship or operate at a remote defense installation. Ampera also plans to monitor deployed units from a central command center.
“We’re always listening to the customer and to the markets, and we’ll build what the customer needs,” Matthews said. “That’s really part of our philosophy: to start with the customer and work back to the product, not the other way around.”
Customers would not need to become amateur nuclear operators. Ampera plans to install and maintain its systems, then charge for the electricity through long-term power purchase agreements. The company would handle the reactor, licensing and maintenance; the customer would get a power bill.
Matthews has spent close to three decades moving between energy and advanced manufacturing. Looking back, what once seemed like a career detour now resembles preparation.
“Sometimes you do things in your career that look a little off the beaten path, and then later on you discover that those are the things that gave you some insight that maybe other people missed,” he said.
Frost’s arrival at Ampera completed another loop. A nuclear engineer, he founded Nuclear Safety Associates in 2001 and later sold it to British engineering company Atkins. Matthews worked for him more than two decades ago.
After retiring, Frost began noticing Ampera online. He realized Matthews was behind the company and called his former colleague to ask what, exactly, he was building. The answer persuaded Frost to come out of retirement, and move from North Carolina to Palm Beach.
“I was immediately enthralled,” he said.
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- Surfing the future of energy with NEPTUNYA
- Exowatt pulls in $50M to keep the AI boom from blowing a fuse
- Ampera wants to sell nuclear power, without selling you a reactor – August 17, 2026
- Chip’s EV is taking a different road to autonomy – August 13, 2026
- ImaageQ wants to give homebuyers a better view of the future – August 11, 2026
