America’s energy security cannot be a case of “America alone.” Foreign capital will have to play an indefensible part.
President Donald Trump has chosen nuclear energy as a centerpiece of his energy security agenda. In October, the Trump administration announced a strategic partnership with Westinghouse Electric, owned by Canada’s Brookfield Asset Management and Cameco, to enable the construction of at least $80 billion worth of new AP1000 reactors in the United States.
The program is pitched as a way to keep America ahead in the “global AI race” by guaranteeing round‑the‑clock power for hyperscale data centers while reducing exposure to gas price shocks.
The deal is also meant to reverse a long decline. The United States has connected only one new large nuclear project in the past three decades. The two AP1000 units at Georgia’s Vogtle plant entered commercial operation years behind schedule at a total cost exceeding $30 billion (around twice the original $14 billion estimate), and the overruns were a central factor in Westinghouse’s 2017 bankruptcy filing. Rebuilding nuclear energy at scale now requires not just capital and permits but a manufacturing base that America no longer possesses on its own.
Why America Needs a Foreign Supply Chain
During the 1970s and 1980s, the United States was one of the largest builders of nuclear reactors in the world, alongside France. But its heavy forging and specialized nuclear supply chain eroded as orders dried up. Today, only a limited number of countries are capable of manufacturing large reactor pressure vessels and other critical nuclear components. That group includes Japan, South Korea, France, China, and Russia.
France’s nuclear manufacturing base has historically been built around the RCC‑M code and French regulatory requirements, while Japanese and Korean vendors have spent decades certifying major components under the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) and other US‑aligned standards. That makes Japanese and Korean supply chains generally better positioned than France’s to serve as primary hardware partners for a large US reactor build‑out, even though French firms can and do work to international codes when projects require it.
Japan and South Korea now anchor the most comprehensive nuclear manufacturing ecosystems among the advanced democracies, with firms such as Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Toshiba, and IHI supplying key equipment to a wide range of Western reactor projects.
South Korea’s Doosan Enerbility produces large reactor vessels, steam generators, and other primary components, and Korean engineering and construction firms led by Hyundai E&C have built most of Korea’s domestic reactor fleet, as well as the four APR1400 units at the United Arab Emirates’ Barakah plant, with overall schedules and costs broadly consistent with industry benchmarks. Any realistic plan to deploy something like 20 new US reactors depends on drawing deeply on these allied capabilities.
Japan’s $80 Billion Nuclear Play
Japan has moved quickest to align its industrial base with Washington’s nuclear resurgence. Under a broader US-Japan framework agreed upon in 2025, Tokyo announced a $550 billion investment package for US energy and other “strategic sectors,” including roughly $80 billion in potential financing and support earmarked for Westinghouse reactor projects to be executed with Japanese contractors and equipment suppliers.
Korea’s Broader, Looser Offer
South Korea has also signed a headline package with Washington, worth around $200 billion on paper and spanning energy, semiconductors, batteries, and artificial intelligence. Korean firms remain entrenched in America’s nuclear orbit. Doosan has supplied heavy equipment for Vogtle and other reactors. Korean EPC contractors have experience in modular construction, and Korea’s APR1400 technology has proven itself in the UAE. Yet, unlike Japan’s offer, Korea’s commitment is broad and not publicly carved out by vendor or reactor line. No Korean financing package has been announced that is as tightly bound to Westinghouse‑branded projects as Japan’s nuclear allocation.
Geopolitics in the Vendor List
In an industry where long‑lead components must be ordered years ahead, financing often signals future industrial dominance. Japan’s decision to channel a substantial share of its $550 billion US investment framework (often described as up to around $80 billion) toward Westinghouse‑linked projects is likely to give Japanese firms an advantage when contracts for long‑lead nuclear components and services are allocated, even though the precise distribution of that support across specific equipment types has not been fully disclosed.
Korea’s broader memorandum still matters, but it does not send as sharp a signal about who will own the bottleneck equipment in a standardized US fleet. Political economy will shape those choices. By funneling $80 billion of orders through one vendor ecosystem, the US government is also choosing which allied factories to keep busy for a decade. Given Japan’s explicit nuclear allocation and its strategic importance in the Indo‑Pacific, it is likely to become the preferred foreign supply‑chain anchor, with Korean firms playing substantial but more complementary roles. The center of gravity of the non‑US hardware, in other words, is drifting toward Japan.
Once a utility has qualified a reactor‑vessel supplier, it will usually standardize on that manufacturer for as much of its fleet as possible, instead of repeatedly going through the cost and risk of certifying additional vendors.
France, for example, built 56 commercial reactors between the mid‑1970s and late 1980s under the Messmer program by standardizing on a small family of PWR designs and industrial partners, while Ontario Hydro deployed roughly 20 CANDU units over just more than two decades using a similarly standardized reactor technology and supplier base. If the United States ultimately deploys on the order of 20–22 GW of new capacity from the planned $80 billion Westinghouse program, that build‑out will similarly depend on extensive design repetition and near “assembly‑line” predictability across the supply chain.
A Private Equity Twist to Industrial Policy
Just as striking as the geopolitics is the deal’s financial engineering. The Westinghouse partnership is not a simple subsidy program. It borrows techniques more familiar from private equity than from public works.
Rather than wiring grants up front, the US government is taking a performance‑based claim on future cash flows and potential equity value. Once final investment decisions and binding contracts for at least $80 billion of projects are in place, the government earns a participation interest in Westinghouse distributions. After existing investors have received $17.5 billion, taxpayers become entitled to 20 percent of any additional cash paid out. If, by January 2029, Westinghouse can plausibly support an initial public offering (IPO) valued at $30 billion or more, Washington can require an IPO and receive warrants equivalent to a 20 percent equity stake above the same $17.5 billion threshold.
Energy Security in the AI Era
The administration insists that the purpose of all this is not financial engineering for its own sake, but energy security in a world of surging digital demand. Hyperscale data centers and AI workloads require huge amounts of electricity, and intermittent renewables struggle to meet that load without vast amounts of storage and grid reinforcement. A standardized fleet of AP1000 reactors using Canadian uranium and major components sourced from Japanese and Korean suppliers is being promoted as a reliable way to power America’s data center boom while cutting emissions.
If the $80 billion program succeeds on something close to schedule and budget, America would gain more than a few dozen gigawatts. It would regain a functioning nuclear industrial base, re‑anchor critical manufacturing in allied democracies, and offer partners from Europe to Asia a non‑Chinese alternative in reactor technology and fuel‑cycle services. Japan would lock in decades of high‑value exports and cement its status as Washington’s indispensable industrial partner. Korea would remain an important, if somewhat less central, player in the supply chain.
President Trump promised to bring nuclear power back. The $80 billion Westinghouse deal is the instrument chosen to do it. Ultimately, the success of the program will hinge less on the elegance of its term sheet than on whether this alliance‑based, private‑equity‑inspired framework can reliably execute the demanding practicalities of nuclear project delivery.
About the Author: Stella Kim
Stella (SuHee) Kim is an investment and nuclear strategy expert with over a decade of experience bridging global finance and deep-tech, with a particular focus on small modular reactors (SMRs). She is the CEO of Pandia Bridge, a Singapore-based advisory firm that connects global investors and leading Korean conglomerates with top SMR developers, including NuScale Power, to facilitate cross-border investments and strategic partnerships. Her work centers on the intersection of energy security, technology innovation, and strategic finance on a global scale. She holds a BA from Ajou University in South Korea and participated in a study abroad program at the Luleå University of Technology in Sweden.
Image: Shutterstock/Tatyana Mi
