More than $65 billion of Japan’s $550 billion U.S. investment package is being directed into small modular reactor projects, as Washington looks to Japanese capital to underpin one of its most ambitious energy pivots in decades.
The nuclear commitment centers on two deals. GE Vernova and Hitachi are jointly developing SMRs that could draw up to $40 billion from Japan, while U.S. startup NuScale Power has an additional $25 billion in its sights. Tennessee is under consideration as the site for the first project, and the permitting process for an SMR is already said to be underway by the U.S. government.
These investments are expected to be announced as part of Japan’s second and third tranches of U.S. investment commitments, which were initially agreed upon as part of tariff negotiations.
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Earlier this month, online consultations between Japan’s economy minister Ryosei Akazawa and U.S. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick put nuclear plant construction and expansion at the center of talks on how to deploy the broader investment framework.
Lutnick framed the partnership in explicitly global terms, saying the two countries aim to jointly build an SMR supply chain inside the U.S. and export that technology worldwide. The ambition fits with the Trump administration’s broader nuclear agenda, which includes four presidential orders issued in May to fast-track small reactor approvals and a goal to build 10 large-scale reactors by 2030. Trump has also set a target to quadruple U.S. nuclear generation capacity by 2050.
One sticking point remains. Japan has raised concerns about accident liability exposure for the plants it funds, though a senior U.S. official said Japan bears no liability under the current structure and pledged to resolve those concerns before negotiations conclude.
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