A US–South Korea framework commits up to $120 billion of Korean investment toward eight large reactors on US federal sites: six Westinghouse AP1000s in three two-unit plants and two APR1400s, a Korean design that incorporates Westinghouse technology. Korea would also take a 5–10% cornerstone stake in Westinghouse, which gets an upfront payment, guaranteed work and a fuel contract. It is a financing framework, not a construction start.
Four SMR units operate worldwide, all in Russia and China, and that count has not moved since 2023 — even as 2026 brought a construction permit, a modern licensing framework and four reactors reaching criticality in the US. A read of the gap between permits and power.
Westinghouse / NCERC (LANL, INL, NNSS) — Westinghouse's eVinci test article reached zero-power criticality at 10:39 a.m. PT on 24 Aug 2026 at the National Criticality Experiments Research Center in Nevada, with Los Alamos and Idaho National Laboratory. Zero-power criticality confirms the core's nuclear design — the reaction is self-sustaining — without generating usable heat or power, so it validates physics rather than demonstrating a working reactor. Westinghouse's 15 Sep release added the temperatures: the test article went critical at 663°C (1,225°F) and researchers measured a peak core temperature of 1,011°C (1,852°F), a record high for a reactivity measurement at NCERC — a facility record, not a technology one. Read the pair carefully: at zero power the core is not making that heat, it is held at those temperatures so the team can measure how reactivity responds to them, which is the data the prototype design needs. eVinci is a heat-pipe-cooled design with no pumps or coolant loops, sized at 5 MWe for remote sites and data centers; it was separately selected for the US Army's Janus Program at Fort Drum.
Westinghouse Electric confidentially filed for a US IPO on July 31. Jointly owned by Brookfield Renewable (51%) and Cameco (49%), which bought it for $7.9B in 2023, it supplies technology used by more than half the world's operating reactors. Share count and price range aren't set. It follows X-energy, Standard Nuclear and Holtec into the 2026 nuclear listing wave.
TerraPower 
Oklo 
NuScale Power