Samsung C&T is putting up to $100 million into Kairos Power, a US nuclear startup building a reactor for Google. The deal splits into a $70 million equity stake and $30 million in engineering services.
The Samsung group company has built or helped build about a dozen nuclear reactors around the world. That construction experience is what Kairos gets on top of the cash.
Kairos is building a high-temperature reactor cooled by molten fluoride salt in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The demonstration unit is rated at 50 megawatts.
How it works
The reactor burns TRISO fuel. Tiny grains of uranium are wrapped in layers of ceramic and carbon, then packed into pebbles about the size of a billiard ball.
The first reactor, Hermes 1, is a low-power demonstrator for experiments. Hermes 2 is meant to be the first commercial-scale unit. The US Nuclear Regulatory Commission approved the project in late 2024.
Power for Google
Google signed a deal with Kairos in the fall of 2024 for reactors capable of generating about half a gigawatt of electricity by 2035. The Oak Ridge reactor is scheduled to come online in 2030.
