As Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates is set to visit Korea on the 14th, a meeting is expected to be arranged with HD Hyundai Chairman Chung Ki-sun to discuss cooperation on Small Modular Reactor (SMR) projects, according to reports on the 12th. It will be the first face-to-face meeting between the two in seven months since their encounter at the Davos forum.
The relationship between TerraPower, the U.S. SMR corporations founded by Gates, and HD Hyundai dates back to 2022. At the time, HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering opened the door to collaboration by investing $30 million in TerraPower, and in December 2024, HD Hyundai won a contract to manufacture a reactor vessel for TerraPower's 345 MW-class sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) in Wyoming, with work now underway.
The two sides have continued to cooperate since then. Chairman Chung and Gates met in the United States in March last year and signed a memorandum of understanding to expand the manufacturing supply chain for the commercialization of sodium reactors, and in August they met again in Seoul to flesh out cooperation plans. In May this year, HD Hyundai Heavy Industries signed a basic agreement with TerraPower for the supply of sodium reactors and was selected as the preferred bidder for key facilities of the primary reactor equipment.
HD Hyundai is pursuing not only land-based nuclear power plants but also technology development to use SMRs as a ship propulsion power source.