(The Center Square) − A nuclear startup seeking to revive a reactor design abandoned nearly a decade ago is establishing its headquarters in New Orleans, betting that surging electricity demand from data centers can create a new market for small nuclear plants.

Applied Atomics plans to invest $8.2 million in an 18,500-square-foot headquarters and technical center in the Bywater, Louisiana Economic Development announced Wednesday. The company expects to create 41 jobs averaging $121,000 annually.

The larger significance is the technology Applied Atomics is trying to commercialize.

Earlier this year, the company secured rights from BWX Technologies to commercialize mPower, a small modular reactor originally developed by Babcock & Wilcox. The project received more than $100 million in federal support before development was suspended in 2017 after its backers struggled to secure additional financing.

Applied Atomics now wants to restart the licensing and commercialization effort at a time when data centers are creating unprecedented demand for round-the-clock electricity.

The mPower design would produce roughly 195 megawatts per reactor module. Multiple reactors could be combined to serve customers requiring hundreds of megawatts or even more than a gigawatt, roughly the scale increasingly sought by major data center campuses.

“There’s a lot of power demand and power needs, but there are also a lot of opportunities for low carbon power here with data centers coming in,” Applied Atomics CEO and co-founder Ben Kellie said.

Louisiana has increasingly tied its own nuclear ambitions to that same demand.

The state’s recently released Nuclear Strategic Framework identifies data centers and other large industrial customers as potential anchor buyers for new nuclear projects. Meta, which is constructing a massive data center campus in Richland Parish, has separately solicited proposals for between 1 and 4 gigawatts of new nuclear generation that could begin supplying power in the early 2030s.

Applied Atomics says its reactors could eventually serve data centers, synthetic fuel plants, liquefied natural gas facilities, hydrogen projects and other large industrial customers.

The New Orleans facility itself will not contain a nuclear reactor or radioactive material. Instead, it will house engineering operations, component assembly and a training center.

The company also plans an outdoor demonstration system called the “Plexiplant,” which will use steam and electricity to simulate portions of a power plant. The system is intended for equipment testing and hands-on operator training and is expected to begin operating in early 2027.