Talen Energy Corp. has sold its Cumulus data center campus, located near the Pennsylvania nuclear power plant that powers the site, to Amazon Web Services (AWS), according to an investor presentation. announced.
Mr. Talen owns the 2.5 gigawatt Susquehanna Steam Power Plant, a nuclear power plant in Luzerne County. Talen said in his March 4 investor presentation that it had made a “transformative transaction with Amazon Web Services” for a 960 MW data center.
AWS said in its own news release Monday that the company is creating an AWS infrastructure region in Saudi Arabia, which could open as early as 2026, and investing $5.3 billion in the country over the next few years in a separate deal. Then he announced. Prasad Kalyanaraman, vice president of infrastructure services at AWS, said in a statement that the investment is part of the company's support for Saudi Arabia's digital transformation, and is expanding its cloud infrastructure to meet the demand for cloud services across the Middle East. He said he would use it.
$650 million deal
During Monday's investor presentation, it was announced that Talen had sold the Cumulus Data site and assets for $650 million. The sale included all land, power infrastructure, powered shells and intangible assets at the data center campus, the company said.
Mac McFarland, Talen President and CEO, said: “This transaction provides an attractive return on Talen's investment and vision in building Cumulus, creating value through the sale of clean, carbon-free electricity from our top 10 Susquehanna nuclear power plants.”
The data center campus consists of 1,200 acres. The site also includes cryptomining facilities operated by cryptocurrency groups Talen and TeraWulf. As part of the deal, Talen will power his AWS through his 10-year power purchase agreement with the Susquehanna plant. The Susquehanna plant has been operated since 1983, originally by PPL. Susquehanna, near Berwick, Pennsylvania, has two of his boiling water reactors.
AWS has a minimum power contract for data centers that increases by 120 MW over several years, with a one-time option to limit the contract to 480 MW. AWS has two 10-year options to extend the contract, and those options are tied to the renewal of Susquehanna's nuclear operating license.
Talen Energy was formed in 2015 after PPL's competitive power generation business was separated and subsequently merged with that of private equity firm Riverstone Holdings. Talen founded Cumulus Growth in 2020. The companies include Cumulus Data, a company focused on hyperscale data centers, and Cumulus Coin, which provides digital currency mining.
investing in saudi arabia
AWS said its investment in Saudi Arabia will feature three availability zones at launch. The company currently has 105 availability zones across 33 geographic regions. The company said it plans to launch 18 more such zones, covering Malaysia, Mexico, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Thailand, and six more regions in the AWS Europe Sovereign Cloud.
AWS data centers and cloud regions support a company's portfolio of cloud services and infrastructure.
“New AWS Regions enable organizations to unlock the full potential of the cloud and build with AWS technologies such as compute, storage, databases, analytics, and artificial intelligence to help businesses and institutions serve their customers. It will change the way we deliver our products,” said Kalyanaraman. “We look forward to helping Saudi institutions, startups, and businesses deliver cloud-based applications that accelerate growth, productivity, and innovation, and foster job creation, skills training, and education opportunities. Masu.”
—Darrell Proctor I am a senior associate editor at POWER (@Power Magazine).