Small Modular Reactors: Companies, Startups & Research

NuScale, Rolls-Royce, Kairos Power LLC and TerraPower are prominent companies active in SMRs. NuScale and Rolls-Royce develop light-water designs, while Kairos Power LLC works on molten-salt reactors and TerraPower develops liquid-metal fast reactor systems. Amazon and Google are also associated with efforts to secure nuclear power for data centers.

Idaho National Laboratory has 251 recent-window documents, followed by Oak Ridge National Laboratory with 141 and Argonne National Laboratory with 108. Their work includes advanced reactor research, component manufacturing techniques and thermal-hydraulics modeling. These activity figures indicate research presence, not a ranking of technical quality.

Reported totals are $116,469,834 across 43 grants since 2020 and $17,450,659,851 across 16 funding rounds. The totals aggregate recorded funding activity and do not represent a single program or necessarily funding devoted exclusively to reactor development. The U.S. Department of Energy is identified as supporting the move from design toward deployment.

Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Co. leads with 24 patents, followed by KEPCO NUCLEAR FUEL CO., LTD. with 8 and NuScale with 7. The French Atomic Energy Commission has 3. These counts identify patent holders in the available records; they do not measure the commercial value or technical importance of each portfolio.

Patent activity fell 48.2% over the last 12 months, while publications grew 10.9%. The patent figure indicates a decline in recent filing activity, not a halt in development: recent research continues on fuels, safety systems, thermal hydraulics and operating flexibility. Patent counts alone cannot establish whether commercial readiness is advancing.

SMRs remain an emerging deployment class: the field recorded 588 publications and 52 patents in 2025. Research addresses reactor safety, fuels, control systems and economics, while companies and governments pursue projects. These indicators show sustained technical and commercial activity, but do not establish that designs have achieved repeatable, cost-competitive deployment.

September 2026 research from the University of Michigan assessed site-level SMR potential across electricity, industrial heat and hydrogen, while a University of Dhaka study modeled accident-tolerant fuels for NuScale’s reactor. Recent work also examines load-following control, passive heat removal and an integrated supercritical-CO2 system for data centers.

The five named approaches are light-water, high-temperature gas-cooled, liquid-metal fast, molten-salt and heat-pipe microreactors. They differ in coolant, operating conditions and design goals. Light-water concepts draw on familiar reactor technology; other approaches target high-temperature heat, alternative fuel cycles or compact heat transport, with distinct materials, safety and qualification challenges.

The United States leads with 10,145 documents, followed by the United Kingdom with 4,097 and Canada with 2,597. France, China and Japan also have substantial activity, with 2,321, 1,988 and 1,613 documents respectively. These counts reflect recorded activity and do not directly measure installed capacity or project readiness.

Named applications include data centers (1,850 documents), grid electricity (1,756), industrial heat and hydrogen (715), desalination (429), remote and defense power (143), and maritime power (113). The figures reflect activity associated with each use case, not operating deployments. SMRs are considered for both electricity supply and heat-intensive or remote applications.