HD Hyundai chairman, Bill Gates to meet Friday to discuss SMR cooperation: sources

HD Hyundai Chairman Chung Ki-sun, right, shakes hands with Bill Gates, founder and chairman of U.S. nuclear energy firm TerraPower, during their meeting in Seoul, Aug. 22, 2025. Yonhap

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

It would mark their first meeting in seven months since they met on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

The meeting comes as HD Hyundai, Korea's leading shipbuilding group, and TerraPower, which specializes in advanced nuclear energy technology, have been expanding cooperation in the SMR sector.

HD Korea Shipbuilding & Offshore Engineering, the group's shipbuilding holding company, invested $30 million in TerraPower in 2022.

HD Hyundai has since been participating in the construction of reactor equipment for TerraPower's 345-megawatt Natrium sodium-cooled fast reactor project in Wyoming, the United States.

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

In May, the two companies signed a Natrium Reactor Supply Framework Agreement, under which HD Hyundai Heavy Industries became a preferred manufacturer of components for the Natrium Reactor Enclosure System.