All right. Can everyone hear me okay? Great. Good afternoon, everyone. My name is Matthew Barry, Director of Investor Relations and Capital Markets here at NANO Nuclear Energy. We're developing next-generation micro-reactors, nuclear fuel fabrication, and transportation technology to provide smaller, simpler, and safer clean energy solutions. So just for everyone's understanding, NANO Nuclear is a publicly traded company, and as such, any forward-looking statements made are covered under U.S. securities law. If you have any questions regarding our forward-looking statement disclaimer, please feel free to check out the disclaimer on our website. So in addition to our focus on micro-reactors, as I mentioned, we are taking a differentiated approach and a focus on vertical integration to integrate to other aspects of the nuclear fuel cycle to de-risk micro-reactor deployment and provide leveraged growth to the industry over time.
And so key areas of focus outside of the micro-reactors are enrichment , conversion, and transportation as well, which we'll delve further into. As you can see here on this slide, there's a wide range of markets that are applicable to our micro-reactors and really highlighted by the KRONOS MMR, which has the highest TRLs and is the closest to deployment, is really the focus of the company. It's not just data centers we're talking about, various different industrial-related applications for large-scale power needs in areas like manufacturing, smelting, crypto mining, biofuel processing, as well as smaller applications like military bases, mining sites, remote communities, as well as even providing process heat for a variety of different markets, things like desalination and other applications. So I think giving KRONOS MMR has about 15 megawatt electric capacity.
It's a wide range of potential applications, which obviously excites us and was one of the reasons why our team chose to pursue a reactor of this size. Here, as you could see, NANO Nuclear is benefiting from a global nuclear renaissance and, as a result, several different tailwinds. So just beginning from the highest level, strong demand for clean, reliable base load energy to support key industries like data centers, but again, not just data centers, things like industrial reshoring as well as electrification of various industries. And then as well, another key tailwind for the company is just climate mandates and energy sustainability independence and the focus globally on clean energy solutions. And nuclear really is the only clean energy solution that can provide reliable base load power.
And as well as unprecedented bipartisan support, obviously clearly benefiting from that tailwind that's really government focusing on trying to do everything it can to deploy and develop these advanced reactors as quickly as possible. And then here, just double-clicking into sort of the demand side of the equation, there's been a lot of announcements from tech leaders beginning in late 2024 on them expanding their nuclear capabilities. I think we're all aware of announcements from Microsoft, Amazon, Google, Oracle, Meta, and NVIDIA, all pursuing small modular reactors or advanced reactors or looking to restart traditional nuclear reactors. I think these announcements make it pretty clear that nuclear energy is expected to be essential in the growth of AI data centers and their power needs. And then here, as you could see, touching a little bit on climate mandates and how that's impacting the nuclear market and demand for nuclear.
I mean, at the end of the day, nuclear is widely recognized as the ideal base load source of power to meet climate goals, and that's due to a variety of factors, including nuclear is base load capable, whereas wind and solar and some other clean sources of energy aren't. It's not geographically restricted, which is very important. It can be placed pretty much anywhere for the most part, obviously has zero emissions and the highest capacity factor, has the most energy density. So all of these factors have contributed to many countries, industry-leading companies, some of the world's largest banks and energy users committing to triple nuclear capacity by 2050, and then obviously the United States separately has a goal based on, I believe, President Trump's most recent executive orders to quadruple nuclear capacity by 2050.
So obviously very beneficial and solidifying nuclear as a growth sector for the years to come. Now, advancing here to just to touch a little bit further on the unprecedented bipartisan support and how a company like NANO Nuclear Energy expects to benefit, I would say from a very high level, this is not just the current administration, it's the prior administration as well, passing legislation such as the ADVANCE Act, the effects of which companies like ours are now beginning to, will soon begin to benefit from. But from the highest level, I think what we're seeing are a multitude of opportunities to expedite deployment and development pathways with the NRC and through the DOE, direct financial support via grants or loan guarantees from various entities, whether it's EXIM Bank or DOE LPO office.
Obviously, we're exploring various opportunities to finance some of our potential large-scale projects in the future and seeing a lot of potential support there. Reduction in licensing costs, I think that's a big one that can help expedite deployment, as well as opportunities at military bases, which we'll get into NANO's growing commercial pipeline and get into that a little bit more in the coming slides. So here from the highest level, a lot of investors ask the question, why micro-reactors versus some of these larger SMR solutions? And I think there's a key value proposition for micro-reactors. At the end of the day, SMRs and micro-reactors were developed to basically solve the challenges of traditional nuclear reactors.
So when you think of traditional nuclear reactors and some of these challenges, long approvals, large on-site construction, cost overruns, inability to reach economies of scale through multiple units, inability to do a lot in the factory to limit that on-site construction, and also safety risks as we're all aware of. So when you think about micro-reactors like our KRONOS MMR, we believe that we can benefit from economies of scale from doing more factory fabrication of components in the factory and having a size of our design that enables these components to be small enough to be shipped by road and a design that's able to benefit from modular assembly. So when we're thinking about gigawatt-scale projects, having construction teams repetitively build the same unit over and over and over again and benefit from not only construction learnings, but learnings in the factory as well.
That's a key potential differentiating factor, as well as the ability to scale cost effectively over time and to meet a project's ramp plans and limit initial CapEx. I think these factors are viewed very favorably from some of our potential customers that we're speaking with for a range of applications, and as well as specifically our solution, the KRONOS MMR, utilizing TRISO fuel, which really prevents the same type of safety risks that have occurred in the past. That also allows us to have a very favorable footprint relative to traditional nuclear reactors and even, I'd say, a good amount of the larger SMR solutions and really provides the ability to provide off-grid behind-the-meter power, which a lot of our potential customers view very favorably.
And so I would say ultimately all these factors are key aspects of our value proposition, and we believe the ability to do more in the factory, the ability to automate more, the ability to benefit from learnings in the factory and on-site in terms of construction could enable levelized cost of energy to quickly get around $100 per megawatt-hour and even below in the future as we benefit from economies of scale. Now here, just delving into a little bit more about KRONOS specifically, KRONOS, when we had the opportunity to acquire the asset in January 2025, our management team viewed it as an opportunity to really accelerate the trajectory of the company and compete for a lot larger scale projects, including obviously data centers.
From a very high level, it was much closer to market than some of the other designs that we were advancing at the time and had a very high tech readiness. When we talk about a high tech readiness, referring to it's a high temperature gas reactor utilizing TRISO fuel, helium as a coolant, graphite as a moderator. These types of reactors have been built before globally many times, and not just here in the U.S., but we had two reactors in the U.S., Fort St. Vrain, Peach Bottom, and we're going to provide more detail on this. Having these types of data on historical deployments, we believe will not only benefit us in the licensing process, but will benefit us in the ultimate deployment because we're not bringing a complete new novel tech to the market.
We're trying to basically build something that's been done successfully before, and we think that'll benefit us. In terms of KRONOS having a de-risk design, KRONOS had benefited from, we estimate, well over $120 million of investment over an eight-year period from the company we acquired it from Ultra Safe Nuclear Corporation. And so this is not a reactor design that just popped up out of nowhere. This is a design that's had a lot of time and investment in it. And also KRONOS is nearing formal licensing process in the U.S. and Canada, and we begin to kickstart that process in early 2026 upon submission of a construction permit application for our first prototype project at the University of Illinois. And KRONOS was actually also the first micro-reactor to enter Canada's phase one licensing process.
And we've acquired the entity that submitted that licensing initial that participated in the pre-licensing activities in Canada. And once we potentially finalize an agreement with a potential partner in CNL for Chalk River project in Ontario, we could pretty quickly kickstart the licensing process in Canada with the submission of a license to prepare site, which would be the first formal step. So very excited about that. And as we touched upon, KRONOS not only can serve small projects, remote communities, it can serve large-scale data center and industrial projects, 500-megawatt to 1 gigawatt-plus scale projects. So key factors there that differentiate KRONOS. And now as we think about another factor that differentiates KRONOS, it's important to note, well, first I would say here's a summary of the reactor technical features. And as we highlighted, high-temperature gas reactor, helium as a coolant, TRISO fuel.
Key distinction between KRONOS and some other SMRs and micro-reactors is we can actually run on LEU+ , which is not HALEU fuel. It's not enriched above 10%. And this is commercially available today with companies like Urenco. So I think that's something that we can benefit from relative to other SMRs and micro-reactor designs that are reliant on HALEU fuel. And obviously there's a lot of work being done to build out our domestic capacity there, but it may take some time. So I think this is a key distinction to note about KRONOS. And then also super important is that our balance of plant strategy also leverages commercially available components. So whether it's steam generators and turbines or proven thermal storage systems used in concentrated solar plants today, we have commercial off-the-shelf components that we believe will benefit the ultimate deployment of our KRONOS MMR.
Now, touching upon a little bit, as we discussed, the history, long history, of high-temperature gas deployment, successful high-temperature gas deployments. As you could see here on this slide, many of these reactors have been built successfully, operating for many of which close to a decade or more. And as you could see, utilizing helium as a coolant, graphite as a moderator, TRISO fuel. The NRC is very familiar with TRISO fuel and the safety characteristics there. And I would say in two up and running, two high-temperature gas reactors up and running in China, they've been built in Japan, Germany, the UK. And I would say the key thing to focus on here is that the core materials, the coolant, and the key parameters that we're looking to deploy, we're looking to deploy our reactor within the parameters of what's been done before.
And this is validated from prior successful high temperature gas reactor deployments. So we think this will benefit us in the licensing and deploying the reactors at scale in the future. Now here, another key differentiator is just the simplicity of our design and the flexibility. And this is important because as a micro-reactor at 15 megawatts electric capacity, we not only can serve those large scale projects that we've highlighted before, we can also serve certain remote communities or mining projects or smaller scale projects that just require one unit that can be co-located at site, or we could distribute units, we could distribute multiple units where power is needed. So I think this versatility and modularity is extremely important because for these large scale projects, we can connect 20, 30, 40 units at site with a pretty favorable footprint that doesn't increase linearly with the number of units.
So I would say very important key distinction there, and also the modularity enables an ability to scale cost effectively in line with project plans, which I think is another important advantage and something that our customers view as very favorably. Now this slide here is important because it highlights the sort of effect of utilizing TRISO fuel and passive safety features, really enabling a favorable footprint and the ability to co-locate at project sites, and our team did a study on basically what a footprint would look like for an 840 megawatt electric project based on a hypothetical radioactive dose dispersion analysis under design-basis accident conditions, and really what this means is a sort of worst-case scenario analysis, and really what this resulted in was an emergency planning zone that was well within the nuclear site boundary, so this really says two things.
One, what we're advancing, we believe will be incredibly safe, but this also enables a very favorable footprint and co-location at project sites and ability to provide off-the-grid power that has less grid integration challenges, as well as less costly transmission lines, and so we've really highlighted KRONOS' value proposition, and this has contributed to a growing pipeline of commercial opportunities, which we highlighted on our latest earnings call, so beginning with an announcement on the feasibility study to provide up to one gigawatt with a company BaRupOn, who's building out an AI data center and manufacturing campus in Texas, so we have the opportunity there to provide a gigawatt, and we're working on that feasibility study.
And also that should conclude in the coming months, and we would then look to start early project development activities, as well as work towards a more definitive agreement. In addition, there's a growing pipeline of data center, industrial related opportunities, as well as military bases. And these are projects spanning from 500 megawatts up to 1 gigawatt, whether data center or industrial projects, as well as smaller military- related applications. And then also growing interest for strategic partnerships abroad that I think we're hoping to make some announcements in this area soon. I think it could open up a lot of people's eyes when they see some of the entities that have energy and infrastructure related experience that could benefit, that are looking to expedite deployment of our KRONOS MMR in regions outside of the United States.
So that's something to keep an eye on, as well as opportunities for remote communities, mining projects, and other markets. And so just double clicking here into the first prototype project at the University of Illinois, we expect to build this prototype right on the campus. We've received several technical reports from the NRC during the pre-licensing process. We recently signed an MOU with the Board of Trustees at the University of Illinois to basically provide more details on the relationship and the framework as we advance the project. We're targeting submission of the construction permit application in early 2026, and that will formally kickstart the NRC licensing process. And we're aiming to be online by around 2029 or 2030. And it's important to note that NANO is not doing this alone.
We have strong support from key project supporters, EPCM and construction firms like Hatch and PCL that have decades of experience with energy projects and infrastructure-related projects, as well as support from the University of Illinois, that's bringing credibility, their nuclear engineers and technical capabilities, as well as providing licensing and stakeholder support. Also, support from the state of Illinois that recently provided us incentives there to build out our engineering facility, and as well as strong bipartisan support, whether it's expedited licensing pathways that we can pursue with the DOE or DOD, or just further support from the NRC. We have a lot of support, which we believe will benefit and expedite deployment here. And then secondly, Chalk River demonstration project. This is a potential second prototype that we're looking to build in Chalk River, Ontario, potentially with Canadian Nuclear Laboratories as a partner.
We would potentially look to build out this prototype concurrently with the University of Illinois. The CNSC has worked, is very familiar with the NRC, and we believe any progress we make with the NRC will benefit us with the CNSC in advancing the project there. As mentioned earlier, we could pretty quickly file a license to prepare site once we finalize an agreement with the potential project partner for the Chalk River project. We could pretty quickly file that license to prepare site and kickstart the licensing process in Canada. Right now we're targeting the project to be online around 2030 while also evaluating opportunities to expedite this timeline. As mentioned before, we do have two other portable micro-reactors that are complementary to KRONOS, the ZEUS reactor and the LOKI reactor.
KRONOS is the closest to market and is the focus of the company, and a substantial majority of our capital is focused on advancing KRONOS given the significant growing pipeline of opportunities that we have. That being said, we do expect these two portable reactors, given that they are within this high temperature gas reactor family, to benefit from KRONOS' advancement in the licensing process in the U.S. and Canada, so we think they could benefit in a very capital efficient way as we move forward, and what I will say is there are companies and entities very interested in these reactors and potentially providing funding and building out manufacturing capabilities for them, and so we are evaluating opportunities to expedite things, but also mindful of focusing our resources on KRONOS.
As mentioned before, vertical integration is a key focus for the company and a differentiator for us versus peers. We believe in order to deploy these reactors at scale in the future, we're going to need to have a self-sufficient nuclear fuel supply chain. We already have exposure to enrichment through our collaboration with LIS Technologies, which was also founded by our founder, Jay Yu. They are the only U.S.- patented and origin laser-based enrichment solution. We're also looking to expand our capabilities in areas like fuel transportation and conversion through partnerships in M&A. Those are two key areas to keep an eye on in 2026.
Just highlighting just a little bit further the strategic focus on fuel processing, touched upon our investment in LIS Technologies, which is supporting development of their enrichment technology, but also we signed an MOU with a company, Dioxitek in Argentina, to evaluate and assess their conversion capacity. And so those are two key ways that we're looking to expand our nuclear fuel production capabilities. NANO is also involved as a member of the DOE's HALEU Consortium. We're in the room with various members that are part of the nuclear fuel cycle in the U.S. and part of these discussions, which we've benefited from. Now just touching a little bit more on our strategic collaboration with LIS.
As previously mentioned, they're focused on enrichment, and many view enrichment as probably the largest bottleneck to deploying advanced reactors at scale in the 2030s because many of these reactors need HALEU fuel. Luckily, our KRONOS MMR can run on LEU Plus, but could have longer refueling cycles on HALEU with additional benefits. But that being said, I think it's important to note LIS's technical team comes from ASML, world leaders in the semiconductor industry, and probably their machines are $300 million machines they sell to the world's most advanced nodes and are integral to the semi-industry scaling. And so this technical team is taking a totally differentiated approach to laser enrichment than what has been done in the past.
They believe by using five-micron continuous wavelength lasers versus 16-micron pulse wavelength lasers that they can really solve the bottleneck of reliability, which has hampered the ability to deploy, to enrich with lasers at scale. This could be an incredibly disruptive technology given that capital and operating costs could be a fraction of what current centrifuge technology requires today. LIS is one of six companies that are part of the DOE's LEU acquisition program. I believe there's still $700 million left with that program that LIS could benefit from. Either way, the company is working to prove out its tech and demonstrate that the technology enriches the way the company believes. If they're successful, they won't have challenges raising the capital they need to build it further scale.
And then, as also mentioned, our management team is focused on fuel transportation and identified that as another critical gap in the domestic supply chain. We have licensed fuel transport casks from the DOE and are also looking to expand our capabilities via M&A here. That's an important area to watch in 2026. In addition, we have facilities, an engineering facility that hosts our technical team in Oak Brook, Illinois, right very close to the University of Illinois prototype project, as well as strategically located near a potential Chalk River, Canada project. We also have another office in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. We're also collaborating with the U.S. government and national labs. We were awarded a direct-to-phase two contract from AFWERX, which is associated with the Air Force, to do a feasibility study to site a KRONOS MMR at Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling.
This could come with some grants, which is pretty exciting as we advance the feasibility study, which will take probably 12-24 months. And there's also another military-related opportunity that we could receive a substantial cost share for, which we're excited about. And we've also signed a CRADA with Idaho National Laboratory, which we believe could expedite deployment of our reactors in the future. So lastly, before we hand it off to Q&A, I just want to highlight the investment thesis and the opportunity here for NANO and why we're so excited. So we highlighted the value proposition of KRONOS as a high temperature gas reactor, the substantial data that shows that these reactors have been built successfully before, which we believe will benefit us.
We can co-locate at data center and industrial sites, as well as military bases and a variety of other applications, which our customers find very valuable. And we have a growing pipeline of commercial opportunities that we've highlighted, and we view 2026 as a year where we can make significant progress, not only on the licensing side of things, but also more LOIs and MOUs and feasibility studies to demonstrate the widespread interest in our KRONOS MMR solution. And as we look to 2026, we believe we have a number of potential catalysts, and we believe in our valuation at about $1.7 billion, which is significantly less than other public peers that are $6 billion and one another, that's $16 billion valuation. So we think there's a pretty large valuation disconnect that we aim to narrow in the coming years, and we're very excited about it. Thank you.
Can I ask on slide 12?
Sure.
Where you have all the kind of history of the high-temperature gas reactor.
Yes.
Why do you think the technology was designed so long ago and then just ?
Yeah, I mean, it's a great question. I think that we have totally different dynamics in the nuclear industry today than have existed in the past. I think when you look at just the demand drivers now, the need to be world leaders in AI, data centers, but even just all the factors we discussed, electrification of various industries, industrial reshoring, and then also the need for climate mandates requiring clean, reliable baseload energy. I think there are just totally different tailwinds and dynamics now that are requiring advancement of these technologies and even more safer solutions, such as high-temperature gas reactors utilizing TRISO fuel.
So it's a good question, and I think the dynamics today are causing a lot of people to revisit some of these prior technologies. And I think there's clear use cases today, whereas maybe in the past it was less so.
Another question on laser enrichment. My understanding is that DOE's been around for a while, working on technology for a while in the isotopes department. What is your heavy handicap whether or not it actually happens, commercialized, specifically the risk of having a shrinking footprint of enriching uranium to higher levels makes it less the technology could be dangerous for people that access to the enriching and creating nuclear level material that's hard to trace. We don't have huge centrifuges anymore, but much smaller footprint, more efficient laser technology. Is that a reason why that wouldn't happen?
I think what was highlighted earlier, the main reason why laser enrichment has historically not been successful in scaling in the past is really due to the inability, my understanding is, the reliability of lasers, which inhibited scaling at larger scale. I think the company that you mentioned has been working for a while trying to solve this issue. I think LIS, coming from ASML with that technical background being world leaders in lasers, I mean, the barriers to entry in the semiconductor industry are second to none. This company, ASML, sells $300 million systems to the world's most advanced nodes, integral for the semi-industry scaling. The point I'm trying to make is the company has a deep understanding of lasers, deep understanding of industrialized lasers, and they're taking a totally differentiated approach than what has been unsuccessful in the past.
And they believe they can scale. And to your other point, there obviously will be proliferation concerns, but I think there will also be a great deal of security measures put into place to prevent that from occurring. So I mean, our team here at NANO and the LIS team is unbelievably excited about the opportunity. And I think the LIS team believes that if they can demonstrate that the technology works the way they believe it, their patented CRISLA technology, they'll receive the funding they need to build at scale. And I think they have a pretty incredible opportunity, not only just because of the valuation of peers, but the need for enrichment in the United States, not only today, but when you look at the growth of reactors deploying in the 2030s, the amount of enrichment needed increases significantly.
I think, yeah, there will be proliferation concerns, but it'll be managed because it's that important to the United States as well as the world.
If you discuss some of the timelines, when is the earliest you could get approval of this design with KRONOS? And when is the earliest you could sign a contract?
Sure. Basically, with the University of Illinois, assuming an early 2026 construction permit application submission, it would be maximum 18 months approval for that construction permit. That being said, based on other peers that have more novel tech who receive their construction permits within around 14 or 15 months, we believe we could potentially beat that.
There's opportunity to maybe receive that permit in 12 months, but either 12 or 15 months would set us up to receive the permit sometime in Q2 or Q3 of 2027, when we could shortly thereafter begin construction activities, and even before then, we'll look to evaluate opportunities to do non-nuclear-related construction activities to expedite that timeline, but based on that timeline, assuming we begin construction in the middle of 2027 at some point, then we would also submit for an operating license because this is under Part 50 separate construction permit and operating license submission, so we would look to submit that operating license, and that would be another 12 to 18 months, setting us up to be later 2028 or more so, probably early 2029 or to mid-2029 to really begin fueling and commissioning. Now, we're always evaluating opportunities to expedite these timelines.
I think a key thing to watch out for in 2026 is new expedited licensing pathways from the NRC, Part 53 and Part 57, which could be very beneficial to advanced reactors, and it's something we have multiple individuals who work at NANO with decades of experience at the NRC, and we're watching very closely and evaluating ways to potentially expedite that timeline, but for future customer-related opportunities at much larger scales outside of the prototype, we announced this feasibility study with BaRupOn , and we'd probably look to advance that project under Part 52 under a combined operating license, which could be a quicker way to deploy in the future, and once you are successful with one, then you can leverage the application that you had for future deployments, which will be more so focused on individual site characteristics.
So we absolutely are looking to do anything we can to try to expedite deployment.
Would be that when you guys would get the license?
Officially, we would get that operating license potentially in [20]. Correct. But as you're working on construction, you can submit that operating license right around the time you're beginning construction. And then as construction is going on, that's being approved. And once it is approved, then you could begin fueling and commissioning. Yes. So there's Part 50, which is separate operating license and construction permit. Now, under Part 52, you can do, as I mentioned before, a COL, combined operating license, which combines those two.
But you could also apply for what you just mentioned, so a standard design certification or approval, which basically allows your design to be or a manufacturing license, which is another option. So that allows you to have an approved design or a manufacturing sort of design approved that you then could reference in future COL. So these are all things that we're evaluating. But it's also tough because there's also new potentially expedited licensing pathways that are coming out that we could benefit from. So our team is very focused on seeing how we can best expedite things.
Is there any potential to get a unit of equipment like DOE or DOD pathways? And then if something there happens
Sure. So we have evaluated opportunities with the DOE.
We actually didn't apply to the reactor pilot program specifically because we already had two opportunities, one in the U.S. and one in Canada, which we believe could lead to commercial licenses. And so we obviously are mindful of capital allocation and trying to pursue too many projects at once. So I think we're focused on the quickest way for us to get commercial license. Now, we are hearing more that some companies are pursuing opportunities with the DOE to expedite things. But I think at this point in time, other than an MOU, from my understanding, between the NRC and the DOE, there isn't much information on how work with the DOE will translate to an NRC license. And so we already had a way to get there for a commercial license, and we feel pretty confident in the path we've chosen. And that was really.
Not getting there through commercial basis, but getting there from a building approved by the [EMS play it out.]
Potentially could be. And we're absolutely evaluating ways to expedite that.
And then with the commercial relationship with Texas, those feasibility studies, what are some of the key things that they want to see before they start to move on, executing that agreement? And then also, who's backing the capacity of that data center? How real is that relationship?
Yeah. So I would say BaRupOn is confident they're very well capitalized, that they will have demand for the AI data center and manufacturing campus. I would say, obviously, next steps are early-stage project development activities.
But key things we're working on are EPC cost analysis so that we can really begin working towards a more definitive agreement and really refining and finalizing the economics of the project. I think what's really interesting about this opportunity with BaRupOn for potentially up to a gigawatt or even more in the future, depending on their expansion plans, is that they are looking to finance the capital investment and purchase the reactors. And so I think that would really benefit a company like ours, just building out our supply chain and benefiting from learnings from a very large-scale project very early on. And as mentioned before, we have multiple opportunities for 500-megawatt and gigawatt- scale projects. And we're hoping to make more positive announcements this year. Great. Well, if there's no other questions, thank you all very much. Appreciate it.