After Firing CEO, Nuclear AI Startup Seeks to Reverse 84% Crash (1)

For a brief moment, no startup rode the data center boom better than Fermi Inc.

Co-founded by a former Texas governor and a brash entrepreneur, Fermi offered companies racing to build data centers the two things they crave most: open land and an astonishing amount of power.

The firm leased a site near Amarillo on which it planned to build power plants generating 17 gigawatts of electricity — three times the amount typically consumed by New York City. Hyperscalers could install their data centers on the site itself and tap directly into that power, which would come first from natural gas turbines and later ...