South Korean firms’ deep experience makes them ideal partners for constructing small modular reactors to meet artificial intelligence energy needs.

Small modular reactors (SMRs) represent a paradigm shift for nuclear energy from bespoke construction to industrial mass production. The premise is straightforward: build reactors in factories rather than on-site, standardize the design, and the costs of nuclear energy should fall. Getting to this point will require dozens of reactor modules, long-term contracts, and fixed schedules. 

As with any transition to serial production, early units carry higher costs until learning curves take effect. The solution requires both anchor customers prepared to move first and capable suppliers able to deliver at scale. Aligning these elements is the key to unlocking SMR potential.

America may be approaching a solution to the demand challenge. The catalyst is not climate policy alone, but the rapid rise of artificial intelligence. AI training and inference are consuming electricity at an unprecedented scale, prompting data-center operators increasingly to seek long-term nuclear power purchase agreements. Yet demand alone is insufficient to encourage growth.

Equally important is the need for credible manufacturers capable of delivering serial production on time and on budget. America faces a constraint here. America can design advanced reactors, mobilize capital, and maintain a strong position in the competitiveness of the nuclear fuel cycle. However, decades of low construction rates have thinned the domestic supply chain for nuclear-grade forgings, specialized components, certified vendors, and experienced construction workforces. Rebuilding that supply chain is possible, but it will take time.

South Korea fills this gap. It is one of the few countries that has preserved an exportable, end-to-end nuclear industrial supply chain: design capabilities, heavy manufacturing, certified suppliers, experienced construction firms, and an operating fleet that continues to refresh skills and vendor qualification. That institutional memory has been sustained through continuous domestic construction and tested in complex overseas projects in the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, and Czechia. 

This capability translates most directly into manufacturing leverage. The economic promise of SMRs rests on serial production. Korea’s heavy industry firms, particularly Doosan Enerbility, have positioned themselves as manufacturing foundries for SMR components, attracting interest from multiple international developers. 

If the United States seeks more energy for AI data centers, it will favor suppliers already embedded in nuclear quality-assurance regimes rather than rebuilding every capability from scratch. Korean firms can compress the lengthy and costly qualification process by exporting certified components, proven production processes, and, crucially, the capacity for repetition at scale.

Engineering expertise provides another layer. For example, KEPCO E&C has developed sophisticated capabilities in nuclear steam supply system (NSSS) design and balance-of-plant (BOP) engineering, areas where many SMR developers face design maturity gaps. NSSS design demands precise integration of reactor physics, thermal hydraulics, fuel design, structural mechanics, and water chemistry under extreme operating conditions. BOP engineering, often underestimated, determines whether a reactor design can actually be built economically and maintained reliably. Korean engineering firms bring decades of refinement in both domains, shortening the path from conceptual design to construction-ready documentation.

Construction matters equally. American nuclear projects have struggled not only with concrete and steel but also with managing thousands of interfaces: welding qualifications, documentation control, supply logistics, nonconformance resolution, and schedule recovery. While SMRs promise simpler construction than large reactors, serial deployment still requires disciplined execution across multiple sites and regulatory jurisdictions. 

Korean construction firms such as Hyundai E&C offer systematic execution honed through continuous domestic and international projects. If SMRs are deployed in fleets rather than one-off demonstrations, this repeatable construction capability becomes essential.

Korea has put real money on the table. Since 2021, major Korean firms, including Doosan Enerbility, Samsung C&T, GS Energy, DL E&C, SK, HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering, and Hyundai E&C, have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in US SMR developers such as NuScale, X-Energy, TerraPower, Holtec, and other US companies. Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power has signed strategic MOUs with multiple developers, including Centrus, as part of a consortium with POSCO International. 

These investments have secured manufacturing rights, component supply contracts, EPC agreements, and technology partnerships. The Korean industry is an integrated partner ready to deliver at scale. What would further credible US-ROK cooperation require?

First, cooperation requires co-located manufacturing structured around American assembly with Korean tooling. The United States seeks jobs, resilience, and domestic industrial capacity. Korea seeks scale and market access. The compromise is to locate final module assembly and integration in the United States, while importing proven tooling, procedures, and early-batch components from Korea until domestic capacity matures. This mirrors how aerospace and automotive supply chains globalized without surrendering national control of final products.

Second, effective procurement requires coordination with data center demand. SMR economics improve dramatically when developers secure repeated orders of identical designs. US hyperscalers, utilities, and federal sites can anchor that demand. Korea can provide the industrial throughput to meet delivery schedules. What is missing is a procurement framework that converts expressions of interest into committed, repeating orders. Korean manufacturing precision achieves its greatest impact when backed by American demand sufficient to justify investment in production lines.

Third, regulatory and codes-and-standards interoperability is essential. The US licensing system is evolving toward greater speed without abandoning rigor. Korea’s competitive edge is partly embedded in standardization and supply chain qualification. Joint qualification protocols and shared quality documentation could reduce duplication in vendor audits and documentation cycles, leading to more predictable review timelines under full NRC oversight. This would compress deployment schedules while preserving US regulatory authority and the cost advantages of serial manufacturing.

Fourth, nuclear supply chains must be treated as national security infrastructure. US energy policy is increasingly tied to industrial strategy, defense, and geopolitical competition. Nuclear power is now judged not only on emissions reduction, but on resilience, export competitiveness, and strategic influence. In that context, allied supply chains matter. A US-ROK nuclear partnership serves as a resilience strategy: diversifying the democratic world’s nuclear manufacturing base, reducing single points of failure, and building surge capacity for both civilian and strategic needs.

Fifth and finally, nuclear research and development (R&D) and human resources development must be treated as a shared investment. Joint research programs, personnel exchanges, and shared training among US national laboratories, universities, and Korean institutions can build the human capital required for serial SMR deployment. A manufacturing partnership without a workforce strategy is not durable.

For Korea, the prize is not simply exports. It is a chance to lock in a role in the next generation of nuclear standard-setting and global deployment. For the United States, the prize is speed: reactors operational and delivering power before the AI boom becomes a grid crisis. Korea possesses the proven manufacturing and construction capacity America needs to deliver SMRs on accelerated timelines without constraining US long-term industrial sovereignty.

What matters now is execution. This means joint ventures co-locating Korean tooling with American assembly, fleet procurement commitments that justify production-line investment, and regulatory frameworks that recognize Korean component certifications, shared R&D programs, and workforce pipelines. The window is narrowing. AI data centers are being planned now. Grid capacity is tightening. Korea has the capacity. America has the demand. The question is whether both can align fast enough to matter.

About the Author: Sungyeol Choi

Sungyeol Choi is a professor in the Department of Nuclear Engineering and the founding head of the Integrated Major in Sustainable High-level Radioactive Waste Management, pursuing a convergence of engineering and social science education at Seoul National University (SNU). Before joining SNU, he was an associate professor of nuclear and quantum engineering and a deputy director at the Nuclear Nonproliferation Education & Research Center at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), and an assistant professor of nuclear engineering at the Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST).

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