Samsung C&T commits up to $100M of investment and engineering to Kairos

Kairos Power and Samsung C&T Engineering & Construction Group announced on September 21, 2026 that they have signed a binding term sheet under which Samsung C&T has agreed to provide up to $100 million, through a combination of direct investment and in-kind engineering services, subject to regulatory approvals, "to enable the successful delivery of the Hermes 2 Demonstration Plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee." The release does not say how the $100 million splits between money and services; a Kairos spokesperson told TechCrunch that the equity investment will make up $70 million of the total.

Samsung C&T has also agreed to join what the release calls Kairos Power's integrated engineering, procurement, and construction (EPC) team "alongside other partners," and the companies plan to collaborate on selected engineering and construction activities "initially focused on power-generation systems and balance-of-plant scope." Kairos plans to lead reactor technology, engineering, manufacturing, procurement, and construction for the nuclear island, per the release. Mike Laufer, Kairos Power's CEO and co-founder, said in the release that "Samsung C&T's investment and partnership reinforce the disciplined delivery model at the core of our commercialization strategy."

The release says the arrangement "builds on a trilateral memorandum of understanding signed by Samsung C&T, Kairos Power, and Barnard Construction on August 18," and gives no year for that signing. Kairos's August 18, 2026 release on a Tennessee manufacturing and workforce initiative it calls NuCAMP describes a different instrument: a memorandum under which Kairos leads the initiative in collaboration with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, the University of Tennessee-Knoxville, the Institute for Advanced Composites Manufacturing Innovation, Barnard Construction, Roane State Community College, Chattanooga State Community College, and Oak Ridge Schools, with "Kairos Power and international collaborators Samsung C&T Engineering & Construction Group and Cambridge Vacuum Engineering" described as "exploring opportunities to collaborate on the NuCAMP initiative by providing strategic advisory services in advanced manufacturing and construction." That release does not mention a three-party memorandum.

Where Hermes 2 stands

Hermes 2 holds construction permits; the operating license is a separate step. The NRC's Hermes 2 application page, last updated September 15, 2026, says the agency "issued construction permits for the Hermes 2 test reactor facility to Kairos Power LLC on November 21, 2024," the day after the November 20, 2024 hearing in its milestone table; the table's last row is that issuance, and no operating license application appears anywhere on the page. Kairos said on November 20, 2024 that the Commission had voted to issue the permits for the plant at the Heritage Center Industrial Park in Oak Ridge, and that under the two-step licensing process in 10 CFR Part 50 it would apply for an operating license for Hermes 2, "which must be approved by the NRC before the plant can start up." The September 21 release dates the permits to "December 2024," which does not match the NRC's record, and does not mention the operating license.

The NRC page also describes the permitted facility as "two low-power test reactors" of 35 MWth each with a shared steam conversion system, while Kairos's August 18, 2025 release described raising Hermes 2's output to 50 MW "generated by a single reactor." Neither the NRC page nor the September 21 release says whether the permits have been amended to match that configuration.

In a release dated April 17, 2026, Kairos said it had broken ground that day on Hermes 2, which it calls "the first-ever power-producing Gen IV reactor to receive a construction permit" from the NRC. That release says Barnard Construction is general contractor for both Hermes reactor projects, that Kairos will fabricate Hermes 2's reactor equipment modules at its Manufacturing Development Campus in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and ship them to Oak Ridge for assembly, and that the plant is being built on the footprint of the former Oak Ridge Gaseous Diffusion Plant at the K-33 site, land Kairos acquired in 2021.

The buyer is already signed. Kairos, Google, and the Tennessee Valley Authority said on August 18, 2025 that under a new power purchase agreement between Kairos and TVA, Hermes 2 will deliver up to 50 MW of "reliable, 24/7 energy" to the TVA grid that powers Google data centers in Tennessee and Alabama. That release said Kairos would increase Hermes 2's output from 28 MW to 50 MW generated by a single reactor "scheduled to begin operations in 2030," and described the plant as the first deployment under Kairos's deal with Google to enable 500 MW of new advanced nuclear capacity to come online by 2035. Google has also signed a 396 MW enhanced geothermal PPA with Fervo Energy, dated August 26, 2026. The August 18, 2026 NuCAMP release's boilerplate and the September 21 release describe Hermes 2 as 50 MW, without the "up to" that the August 2025 release and the April 2026 groundbreaking release attach to the figure.

What Samsung C&T brings

The Samsung C&T boilerplate in the Kairos release says "Samsung C&T has delivered 12 gigawatts across 10 nuclear units," including the Barakah Nuclear Power Plant in the United Arab Emirates and Uljin Units 5 and 6 in South Korea, and cites front-end engineering and design work for small modular reactors "including partnerships supporting SMR development projects in Romania, Estonia, Sweden, and Poland." The boilerplate does not name the projects; in Sweden, Studsvik selected GE Vernova Hitachi and Samsung C&T on September 3, 2026 as partners for an initial four-unit BWRX-300 project under an exclusive development agreement that its release says "does not constitute a final investment decision or authorisation to construct."

Alex CW Lee, whom the release identifies as head of Samsung C&T's Energy Solution Business Unit, said: "Working together, we aim to support successful project delivery and build a foundation for broader commercialization of this promising advanced reactor technology."

Kairos describes the investment as strengthening its "financial readiness" as it advances Hermes 2 and prepares for broader commercial deployment of the KP-FHR, its fluoride salt-cooled, high-temperature reactor. Its coolant, which Kairos calls Flibe, is "a mixture of lithium fluoride (LiF) and beryllium fluoride (BeF2)" first used as a coolant in the 1960s Molten Salt Reactor Experiment at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, per a July 29, 2026 Kairos explainer that also says the KP-FHR "operates with salt enriched with the lithium-7 isotope"; the FLiBe that cooled that experiment is what Natura Resources received from Oak Ridge on September 18, 2026 to become the primary constituent of its Abilene reactor's fuel salt. The structure differs from another SMR financing The Duck Curve covered, the European Investment Bank's up to €40 million convertible loan to Steady Energy announced September 15, 2026, which the bank describes as quasi-equity: here the source is a contractor, and part of the sum is engineering work rather than money. The release also says the U.S. Department of Energy is supporting development and demonstration of the technology through an Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program risk reduction award, "complementing Kairos Power's substantial private investment," and gives a figure for neither.