Uranium ETF Flows Chase AI Power Demand as Japan and Korea Burn More Coal
Nuclear-facing funds are drawing capital on data-center demand forecasts, but Asian buyers are switching to coal in the near term, complicating the trade.
The Global X Uranium ETF traded near $42.97 on Monday (2026-07-13), up about 1.15% on the session and extending a run built on data-center power demand forecasts, with the fund holding roughly $6.86 billion in assets and the deepest liquidity in the group.5 The flows rest on a projection that US power generation from data centers climbs from about 5% of the total to roughly 15% over five years, a jump for a grid that has barely grown since 2000.5
For traders, the pull is straightforward. A 1 GW reactor runs at capacity factors north of 90% and occupies a fraction of the land of an equivalent solar build, which fits hyperscaler baseload needs.5 Microsoft signed a 20-year, 835 MW power purchase agreement with Constellation Energy in September 2024 to restart Three Mile Island Unit 1, a $1.6 billion project targeting a 2027 startup.5
The policy backdrop is aggressive. The US government wants to quadruple nuclear capacity from roughly 100 GW in 2024 to 400 GW by 2050.1 Idaho National Laboratory has partnered with NVIDIA on a project, Prometheus, that aims to cut reactor build times by up to 50% and reduce operating costs by a similar margin.4
But the near-term Asian power market points the other way. Japan and South Korea sharply increased coal-fired generation in April and early May as the war involving Iran disrupted LNG supplies and pushed prices higher, according to market data reported by Kyodo.3 Fei Xu, senior gas analyst at ICIS, said Japan's increased coal generation displaced roughly four LNG cargoes in April, about half the annual import reduction the government had expected from its green-transition plan.3
The trigger was supply. Iranian retaliation to US-Israeli strikes disrupted around 17% of LNG export capacity in Qatar, the world's second-largest LNG supplier.3 That pushed the ICE Endex TTF front-month toward €50 and forced both governments back toward coal, the opposite of the decarbonisation path each has promised.3 Japan imports roughly 90% of its crude, and the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz has exposed the vulnerability of one of the world's largest energy importers.2
That tension is the core of the ETF trade. The Uranium & Nuclear ETF offers exposure to Japanese and Korean reactor builders at lower cost than competitors, according to the AOL report that flagged these funds in late May (2026-05-28).5 The NUKZ fund returned about 52% over the past year and roughly 11% year to date through late May, with shares near $71 and assets of roughly $841 million at a 0.85% expense ratio.5 Top weights have included Talen Energy at roughly 3% and Dominion Energy near 3%, alongside Cameco, GE Vernova, and Constellation.5
Some signals cut against a durable coal shift. JKM spot is bid on infrastructure constraints and Tokyo baseload leans the same way, according to the consensus data. [contrarian_signals] Asian LNG demand is not fading so much as being temporarily suppressed by coal switching that turns uneconomic the moment TTF eases and Qatar restores flows.3
The fund flows into nuclear ETFs are a bet on a multi-decade buildout that policy supports but physics and permitting will test.1 The nearer question is whether Japan and Korea can afford to stay on coal through the summer, which shapes how quickly nuclear enthusiasm becomes real procurement in 2027 and 2028.3 The restart of Three Mile Island Unit 1 in 2027 is the first concrete delivery date on the board.5