A running archive of small modular reactor news — project milestones, regulatory decisions, funding rounds and deals — curated by the SMR Brief Pro research team. Showing 200 recent stories.
Samsung C&T agreed to a $70 million equity investment plus in-kind engineering services, together worth up to $100 million, to help Kairos Power build Hermes 2, whose output counts toward Kairos's 2024 deal to supply Google with nuclear power.
EDF, France's state-owned energy company, plans to build 10 small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) across Europe by 2035, with the first projects planned for France and Italy. The company is also talking with Poland, Belgium and Finland about possible locations. The reactors would produce around 400 MW of electricity each and could also provide heat for industry, with the overall project expected to cost tens of billions of euros. EDF is using a simpler reactor design after concerns over the cost and delays of its earlier, more ambitious nuclear plans.
The U.S. Maritime Administration (MarAd) has initiated research into integrating Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) within the marine transportation system to address rising energy needs at ports and for vessel propulsion. While technical challenges exist, stakeholder feedback emphasizes that establishing appropriate policy and regulatory frameworks is crucial for widespread, scalable SMR deployment. MarAd plans to propose SMR-related legislation to Congress in January and continues in-house research and negotiations for cooperative agreements with ports and private partners.
Blue Energy filed the first segment of a construction-permit application with the NRC to add small modular reactors at its Port of Victoria, Texas gas-plus-nuclear plant powering a Crusoe data centre, with a follow-on filing anticipated in H2 2027.
Holtec Nuclear suspended its planned US IPO on September 16, 2026, which had aimed to raise up to $900 million, citing market conditions shortly before its expected pricing date. The suspension comes amid a broader pullback in nuclear-sector IPOs.
Rolls-Royce SMR launched a Supplier Programme opening up to £1.4 billion of UK contract opportunities over the next year, targeting over 70 percent UK fleet content for Gwyndod, having spent £300 million with UK suppliers and engaged 650 businesses.
X-energy's Xe-100 reactor was accepted into the UK's Generic Design Assessment process a year after Centrica and X-energy signed their partnership, with the UK Minister of State for Energy calling it another step toward advanced nuclear deployment plans of up to 6 GW starting at Hartlepool.
The European Investment Bank made its first-ever investment in small modular reactor technology, a €40 million quasi-equity loan to Finland's Steady Energy, ending roughly four decades since the EIB last directly financed nuclear power generation and marking the first of a planned pipeline of EIB SMR investments.
China Atomic Energy Authority launched the Global Network for SMR Innovation at the 70th IAEA General Conference, a cooperation mechanism for governments, companies and research institutes, welcomed by IAEA Deputy DG Huang Wei with support from Pakistan, Thailand and Nigeria.
The IAEA raised its nuclear capacity projections for a sixth consecutive year, with its high-case scenario now projecting SMRs could reach 284 GWe by 2060, equivalent to roughly 950 to 1,140 units, representing 28 percent of new high-case nuclear capacity additions.
USTDA signed a grant agreement with EGAT for a vendor-neutral feasibility study into US small modular reactor technology for Thailand's first nuclear power project, targeting approximately 600 megawatts and evaluating designs from seven named American reactor developers.
Holtec Nuclear, a provider of nuclear plant equipment and services, announced terms for an $825 million initial public offering, planning to sell 50 million shares at $15-$18 each. The company operates in legacy nuclear services, SMR development, and plant restart operations. Holtec is developing the SMR-300 reactor and intends to deploy it at the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant, which it is working to return to commercial operation with support from a U.S. Department of Energy loan guarantee.
CSMC unveiled three distinct nuclear reactor platforms — POLAR-1 for Arctic and defence power, JAY-1 for lunar and space infrastructure, and ORCA-1 for research and workforce training — retiring its earlier unified LEUNR concept in favour of an application-specific development strategy.
Bluecore Energy closed an oversubscribed $50 million seed round led by Silverton Partners just eight weeks after raising its pre-seed round, as the company begins formal engagement with the NRC and U.S. Coast Guard toward certifying its floating nuclear reactor design.
ONE Nuclear is advancing Project Amberjack, a 1 GW multi-unit SMR campus in Louisiana, into technical and environmental evaluation and NRC pre-application readiness, having achieved site control, with reactor technology selection still pending a vendor-neutral screening process.
NextEra Energy received a $1.9 billion DOE loan to refurbish the Duane Arnold Energy Center in Iowa, backing Google's plan to power data centres from the plant's planned 2029 restart — the second such federal loan for a shuttered reactor restart, after Three Mile Island's.
BARC scientists began a five-day site assessment across the Andaman and Nicobar Islands for possible SMR deployment, addressing the islands' total dependence on diesel generation and rising power demand from the Great Nicobar Project near the Strait of Malacca.
The United States is making substantial investments in the development of small modular reactors (SMRs) and particularly microreactors, with a focus on their deployment for various applications. The U.S. Army's Janus program is a key initiative, allocating up to $2.2 billion to five companies for microreactor construction at military bases by 2028. Additionally, private developers like Aalo Atomics are rapidly advancing reactor technology, supported by federal programs and regulatory streamlining efforts.
Siemens Energy will manufacture high-pressure turbines and valve casings for Rolls-Royce SMR's first three units at Gwyndod in North Wales — the first time such components have been made for a European SMR, supporting over 550 jobs in Newcastle.
The U.S. Maritime Administration selected the ports of Corpus Christi and Long Beach to explore integrating small modular reactors, aiming to strengthen supply-chain resilience against grid disruptions and extreme weather. No specific reactor vendor or technology has been chosen yet.
Holtec is advancing component fabrication for its HI-TEST facility at Idaho National Laboratory, which will use test loops to replicate accident scenarios and steam generator behavior for its SMR-300 reactor, with testing on track to begin in 2027.
NuScale Power and MillenniTEK successfully fabricated first-of-a-kind boron-oxide pellets for NuScale's passive emergency core cooling system, a manufacturing milestone supporting the company's progress toward commercial deployment of its NRC-approved SMR technology.
NuScale is deploying nuclear-specific AI tools built with Nuclearn and NPX to speed engineering and licensing information retrieval, with an initial proof of concept showing up to an 80 percent reduction in time to find relevant technical information.
Core Power and the US Maritime Administration signed a non‑exclusive memorandum of cooperation to develop frameworks for US‑flagged nuclear‑powered merchant ships, targeting first construction from 2028 under a federal‑private maritime nuclear initiative.
Westinghouse Electric Company completed zero-power criticality testing of its eVinci microreactor at the National Criticality Experiments Research Center, validating core physics models and supporting plans for early commercial deployments in North America.