Several countries in the Indo-Pacific have expressed welcome and interest in the "Memorandum of Cooperation (MOC) on Small Modular Reactor (SMR) Deployment" recently signed by the foreign ministers of Korea, the United States, and Japan, according to reports.
"It is difficult to reveal which countries, but we are receiving such reports from several nations," a Ministry of Foreign Affairs official told reporters on the 13th. "Since the signing of this MOC, welcoming responses have been confirmed through various diplomatic channels."
The three countries signed the MOC in Ankara, Turkey, on the 7th. Under the plan, they will adopt a standard reactor model and provide various forms of support to companies entering the SMR market in the Indo-Pacific region. Support is expected to cover the formation of consortiums among companies from the three countries, project financing and capacity building for export destination countries, and areas such as technology, fuel, equipment, and services. Korea, the US, and Japan plan to first continue cooperation within the Indo-Pacific region while keeping in mind future expansion to other regions.
The MOC appears to have been led by the US State Department. As the world enters a nuclear power "renaissance" driven by the AI revolution, Russia accounts for 90% of the global nuclear plant construction market and 40% of the enriched uranium market. China, a latecomer, is also formidable. Of the 80 nuclear reactors currently under construction worldwide, 39 are being built by China. Moreover, Russia's Rosatom and China's CNNC have secured about 90% of the technology and supply chain across the entire cycle, from uranium mining to nuclear plant construction and decommissioning. Given the strategic implications of nuclear power, which encompass not only industry but also security, these are threatening figures for the United States.
Under these circumstances, the US judgment is understood to be that it must join hands with its allies Korea and Japan to secure an early lead in the future SMR market. In the nuclear field, the US holds original technology, Korea has construction capabilities, and Japan possesses finance and precision machinery technology, making the three highly complementary. Major institutions such as the World Nuclear Association (WNA) forecast that the SMR market will grow to a maximum of 158 GW by 2040 and 418 GW by 2050—more than double—accounting for more than 30% of global nuclear power demand.
For Korea, cooperation with the US and Japan is expected to create an opportunity to catch up in the SMR field, where it has fallen somewhat behind. The US plans to commercialize SMRs in 2030-2031, while Korea is targeting the mid-2030s—a gap of five years.
"The three governments began consultations in the first half of last year, agreed on the MOC text in the first half of this year, and had decided to hold a signing ceremony at an appropriate diplomatic occasion. The signing came about naturally when the three-way foreign ministers' meeting was held recently on the occasion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit," the Ministry of Foreign Affairs official said. "The basic purpose of the MOC is to establish a government-level framework of cooperation so that the Korean, US, and Japanese nuclear industries can jointly enter the global SMR market, starting with the Indo-Pacific region." The official added, "Specifically, projects that achieve economies of scale by continuously building multiple identical reactor models (fleet deployment), streamline licensing procedures, and reduce risks are the priority targets for support."
