Kairos Power Adds Samsung C&T to Hermes 2 Build Team

Kairos Power has turned a prospective investor into part of the crew expected to deliver its next reactor. The advanced-nuclear company and Samsung C&T Engineering & Construction signed a binding term sheet for up to $100M in direct investment and in-kind engineering services, subject to regulatory approvals.

The structure matters because the money and the work are aimed at the same risk. Kairos Power is building the 50 MWe Hermes 2 demonstration plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, while preparing its fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactor technology for broader deployment. Samsung C&T is joining the integrated engineering, procurement, and construction team that has to translate that design into an operating power plant.

TechCrunch reported that $70M of the package is an equity investment, citing a Kairos Power spokesperson. Samsung C&T's own newsroom also described an approximately $70M investment. The remainder of the announced value consists of engineering services, so the headline figure should not be read as $100M of cash or a conventional venture round.

What Kairos Power and Samsung C&T Agreed To

Under the September 21 agreement, Samsung C&T will support selected engineering and construction activities for Hermes 2 and future Kairos Power plants. The initial scope covers power-generation systems and the balance of plant, the equipment and infrastructure that turn reactor heat into usable electricity and connect the nuclear island to the rest of the facility.

Kairos Power plans to keep responsibility for reactor technology, engineering, manufacturing, procurement, and construction of the nuclear island. Samsung C&T brings large-project engineering and construction-management experience around it. The companies are therefore dividing the work along a line that exposes one of advanced nuclear's hardest commercial problems: a reactor can be technically credible while the complete plant still struggles with interfaces, supply chains, constructability, cost, and schedule.

The agreement builds on an August 18 memorandum of understanding among Kairos Power, Samsung C&T, and Barnard Construction. Samsung C&T says it has delivered 12 GW of nuclear generating capacity across 10 units and has worked on large nuclear and power projects in South Korea and the United Arab Emirates. Its participation gives Kairos Power an EPC partner with experience outside the reactor design itself.

Why Hermes 2 Is the Real Test

Hermes 2 is Kairos Power's first commercial-scale, power-producing reactor. The U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission issued construction permits for the two-unit test-reactor facility on November 21, 2024. Kairos Power broke ground in Oak Ridge on April 17, 2026.

The plant is designed to produce up to 50 MWe and supply electricity to the Tennessee Valley Authority grid. Under the related Google, Kairos Power, and TVA arrangement, that electricity will support Google data centers in Tennessee and Alabama. Kairos Power plans for Hermes 2 to begin operation in 2030 as the first deployment in a broader agreement to develop as much as 500 MW of advanced-nuclear capacity for Google by 2035.

Those dates and capacities are plans, not completed performance. Hermes 2 still has to move through construction, operating licensing, commissioning, and startup. The Samsung C&T agreement is important because it puts capital and project-delivery capacity against those remaining steps instead of treating commercialization as a problem that ends when the reactor design receives a permit.

The Technology Behind the Construction Challenge

Kairos Power's KP-FHR design combines TRISO particle fuel with molten fluoride salt coolant. The fuel particles use multiple containment layers, while the salt can operate at high temperature without the high pressure associated with water-cooled reactors. Kairos Power is developing the system through successive hardware demonstrations, in-house manufacturing, and nuclear projects intended to reduce uncertainty before larger commercial deployment.

That iterative model is visible across the company's footprint. Alameda houses its headquarters and laboratories. Albuquerque supports manufacturing development, including reactor modules planned for shipment to Oak Ridge. The Oak Ridge campus combines Hermes 1, Hermes 2, and non-nuclear engineering test units so the company can learn from design, fabrication, construction, and operations in sequence.

The approach is deliberately physical. Advanced reactors do not become bankable because a presentation describes modularity. They become more credible when teams fabricate the modules, qualify the materials, train the workforce, sequence the construction, and measure where schedules and costs actually move. Samsung C&T is entering at that handoff between a reactor-development program and a repeatable infrastructure business.

What the Strategic Investment Signals

The most useful reading of the transaction is not that Samsung C&T has placed another climate-tech bet. The company is committing both money and engineering capacity to a specific project while seeking a role in future deployments. Its newsroom said the agreement includes design and constructability review for the demonstration work and priority rights to perform EPC work on planned U.S. commercial reactors.

For Kairos Power CEO and co-founder Mike Laufer and CTO and co-founder Edward Blandford, the partnership strengthens the delivery organization around a reactor program that has already assembled a customer, utility, federal support, regulatory permits, manufacturing sites, and an Oak Ridge construction campus. Each layer answers a different question. Google and TVA create a path to demand and grid delivery. The NRC controls the licensing pathway. Kairos Power owns the technology and nuclear island. Samsung C&T adds capability around the systems that make the plant complete.

The agreement does not settle the economics of advanced nuclear or guarantee Hermes 2 will meet its target schedule. It does show what commercialization now requires: capital that arrives with accountable work, partners whose responsibilities are legible, and a demonstration project large enough to expose the interfaces that a laboratory cannot.

The Bigger Industry Shift

Demand for firm, carbon-free electricity is growing as data centers and industrial loads expand. That demand has revived interest in advanced nuclear, but interest alone cannot compress construction timelines or make first-of-a-kind projects repeatable. The industry needs proof that new reactor designs can be manufactured, licensed, built, and operated with enough consistency to support a fleet.

Kairos Power is trying to create that proof through Hermes 2. Samsung C&T is now financially and operationally tied to the attempt. The plant's turbines, concrete, balance-of-plant systems, construction sequence, and project controls will carry as much commercial meaning as the reactor physics. If Hermes 2 reaches the grid, the record will belong to the complete delivery system assembled around it.