Kisun Chung Meets Bill Gates in Seoul as HD Hyundai and Hyundai Engineering and Construction Accelerate Push into U.S. SMR Market

[Financial News] HD Hyundai and Hyundai Engineering and Construction are joining forces with TerraPower to speed up their push into the world's largest small modular reactor (SMR) market in the United States. The companies aim to accelerate the commercialization of next-generation reactors and establish themselves as a key part of the global nuclear supply chain, targeting a market where power demand is surging on data center expansion and replacement cycles for aging reactors.
HD Hyundai said Kisun Chung, Chairman of HD Hyundai, Bill Gates, founder and chairman of TerraPower, Chris Levesque, CEO of TerraPower, and Lee Han-woo, CEO of Hyundai Engineering and Construction, met in Seoul on the 14th to discuss cooperation in the SMR business.
The meeting was the first face-to-face session among the top executives since the three companies signed a memorandum of understanding in May for cooperation on the next-generation sodium reactor business.
Based on the progress made by their working-level teams, they held in-depth discussions on broad cooperation across technology, manufacturing, and engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) for the commercialization of land-based reactors.
Chung said, "We will speed up the commercialization of next-generation reactors based on a cooperation framework that covers technology, manufacturing and EPC," adding, "Through in-house technology development and global collaboration, we will actively respond to rising demand for SMR power generation."
Through this partnership, HD Hyundai is also working to define the supply chain for SMR key equipment.
Before commercialization begins, the company plans to make preemptive equipment investments and build a production system capable of supplying two to three reactor vessels a year on a stable basis.
Under the structure, TerraPower will provide the core technology for its next-generation sodium-cooled reactor based on a sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR), HD Hyundai will handle key equipment manufacturing, and Hyundai Engineering and Construction will oversee EPC.
The United States, which has 95 GW of nuclear power capacity and accounts for 25% of the global total, is the largest market in the world, and demand for replacing reactors that began operating in the 1970s is expected to rise sharply.
HD Hyundai has maintained a close partnership with TerraPower since making an equity investment in the company in 2022.
After manufacturing a cylindrical reactor vessel for TerraPower's sodium reactor in December 2024, the company signed a strategic agreement in March 2025 to expand the manufacturing supply chain and jointly conduct feasibility and cost-competitiveness studies.
Building on those achievements, the company was named in May as the preferred negotiator for TerraPower's core key equipment, further strengthening its foothold in the global SMR market.
[email protected] Kim Dong-ho Reporter