HD Hyundai Chairman Chung Ki-sun is set to meet with Bill Gates, founder and chairman of U.S. nuclear energy firm TerraPower, in Seoul later this week to discuss deepening their cooperation in small modular reactors (SMRs), according to industry sources speaking Wednesday.

The upcoming meeting will mark the first face-to-face encounter between the two leaders in seven months. Their previous meeting took place on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The talks come as HD Hyundai — South Korea's largest shipbuilding conglomerate — and TerraPower, a company focused on advanced nuclear energy technology, continue to broaden their collaboration in the SMR sector. SMRs are a new generation of compact nuclear reactors designed to be more flexible and cost-effective than traditional large-scale nuclear plants, and they have attracted growing interest worldwide as countries seek cleaner baseload energy sources to meet net-zero emissions targets. The United States, United Kingdom, Canada, China, and South Korea are among the nations actively pursuing SMR development, intensifying a global race to commercialize the technology.

HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering Co., the group's shipbuilding holding company, invested US$30 million in TerraPower in 2022. Since then, HD Hyundai has been involved in manufacturing reactor equipment for TerraPower's 345-megawatt Natrium sodium-cooled fast reactor project, currently under development in Wyoming, United States. The Natrium project has received backing from the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Reactor Demonstration Program, reflecting Washington's push to deploy next-generation nuclear technology domestically. The reactor design pairs its sodium-cooled core with a molten salt energy storage system that can temporarily boost power output during peak demand, a capability that distinguishes it from many other SMR designs under development.

In March 2025, Chung and Gates signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate on the commercialization of the Natrium reactor. The two leaders met again five months later to discuss further expanding their nuclear energy partnership.

In May, the two companies signed a Natrium Reactor Supply Framework Agreement, under which HD Hyundai Heavy Industries was named a preferred manufacturer of components for the Natrium Reactor Enclosure System. For HD Hyundai, the deepening partnership with TerraPower represents a strategic push into the advanced nuclear supply chain at a time when South Korean industry — which has built one of the world's largest civilian nuclear power programs — is seeking to expand its role in global clean energy markets.

(Yonhap)