NuScale Power Corporation (SMR) | The Buildout — AI Infrastructure

The Verdict

NuScale Power designs small modular nuclear reactors built around the NuScale Power Module, a factory-built light-water unit rated at 77 megawatts electric and sold in six- and twelve-unit configurations. The company markets the reactor for siting beside data centers, industrial facilities and retired coal plants. It does not build or own plants; it acts as technology systems integrator and engineer of record, supplying modules and services while its exclusive partner ENTRA1 builds, owns and operates the plants. The AI connection is demand-side: data centers need round-the-clock carbon-free power, and NuScale's pitch is that its approved reactor can sit next to that load.

Earnings

NuScale reported $0.1 million of revenue in Q2 2026, down from $8.1 million a year earlier, as Fluor's FEED Phase 2 work for RoPower completed in late 2025 with no comparable activity in the quarter. Gross margin was negative, which management attributed in part to a Fluor-related adjustment it called 'pretty small numbers on a pretty small basis.' The standout was liquidity: cash, cash equivalents and investments reached about $1.9 billion, up $900 million from March 31, 2026.

Management tone: Management shifted its financial framing from start-up runway to capital allocation. On the Q1 2026 call the CFO hoped to be 'operationally cash flow positive by the end of this year'; on the Q2 2026 call that timing was not repeated, and he said the company had 'diverged from those start-up metrics.' TVA PPA timing went from 'hopeful that TVA can come across the line at some point later this year' to 'active and progressing' with no date. On the other side, supply-chain detail increased: the supplier count rose from 37 to 60-plus, with more than half negotiated.

Management Guidance

No guidance was issued. Management said it is explicitly pre-guidance: 'I don't want to give too much of guidance on future OpEx. I don't think we're in a position to do that, and we generally don't give guidance yet.' It declined unit-cost guidance — 'we're not providing guidance on the cost of building NPM… It's too fuzzy' — and said only that it expects product and services revenue to grow as project activity advances. On RoPower, management said a 2027 revenue contribution is conditional on a contract being in place.

Trajectory

Revenue has declined for three straight quarters, to $0.1 million in Q2 2026 from $8.1 million a year earlier and $0.6 million in Q1 2026. The cause is completion, not lost demand: Fluor's FEED Phase 2 engineering for RoPower finished in late 2025, and the prior-year quarters carried RoPower technology-licensing and FEED revenue with no comparable scope in 2026. Gross margin turned negative, and the company says RoPower-facing engineers were moved from cost of sales into operating expenses rather than let go. Operating and EBITDA margins are compressing, and trailing-twelve-month EBITDA is about -$731 million.

The Model

The model projects FY+1 revenue of $1.1 million and EBITDA of -$246 million, then FY+2 revenue of $8.5 million and EBITDA of -$260 million. Both years remain deeply loss-making on an EBITDA basis, with FY+1 margin at -22,700% and FY+2 at -2,823.5%. The near-term anchor is the absence of contracted revenue; the FY+2 step-up depends on a first project moving into services and early module work. Dispersion across the model's five runs is wide — 45% on FY+1 revenue and 82% on FY+2 revenue.

Projections are the median of 5 independent model runs.

No guidance was issued. Management said it is explicitly pre-guidance: 'I don't want to give too much of guidance on future OpEx. I don't think we're in a position to do that, and we generally don't give guidance yet.' It declined unit-cost guidance — 'we're not providing guidance on the cost of building NPM… It's too fuzzy' — and said only that it expects product and services revenue to grow as project activity advances. On RoPower, management said a 2027 revenue contribution is conditional on a contract being in place.

What Could Go Right — and Wrong

Looking Ahead

The next 12 months turn on converting the two named, unsigned agreements. A definitive ENTRA1/TVA power purchase agreement would be the first contracted capacity in the company's history and would start COLA work, front-end engineering design and OEM negotiation. RoPower depends on financing and on Fluor and the customer contracting with each other first. Management's other near-term markers are additional supply-chain announcements, the Paragon safety-I&C final design described as ahead of schedule, and the Ebara Elliott process-heat field test.

Financials

Annual Summary

Key Ratios (Trailing)

The Company

NuScale Power designs small modular nuclear reactors built around the NuScale Power Module, a light-water unit rated at 77 megawatts electric, with a 50 MWe design as well. Modules are factory-built and sold in VOYGR-6 and VOYGR-12 configurations. In May 2025 the NRC approved the company's second Standard Design Approval, for the 6-unit 77 MWe design. Management markets the reactor for behind-the-meter siting beside data centers, industrial facilities and retired coal plants, enabled by a site-boundary emergency planning zone. Its stated edge is a combination management says no rival holds: NRC approval, conventional fuel, a mature supply chain and engineering readiness.

NuScale does not build or own plants. It describes itself as technology systems integrator and engineer of record, supplying NuScale power modules, nuclear steam supply system equipment and services. ENTRA1 Energy, its exclusive global commercialization partner, builds, owns and operates plants and leads offtake discussions; NuScale calls ENTRA1 the prospective customer. Manufacturing runs through Doosan Enerbility in South Korea, which holds orders for long-lead items on the first twelve NPM upper reactor vessels. The company had 146 hybrid employees in Corvallis, Oregon, about 30 in Houston, and an NRC-facing office in Rockville, Maryland.

Business Segments

Competitive Landscape

NuScale's competitive claim rests on U.S. regulatory approval rather than scale or an order book. Management describes it as the only SMR company with full NRC Standard Design Approval under Part 52, covering two designs, and the only nuclear technology approved for behind-the-meter operations with a site-boundary emergency planning zone. The 10-K names Rosatom and China National Nuclear Corporation as already operating commercial SMRs in Russia and China, so NuScale's position is first in U.S. licensing, not first globally. Its fuel choice — conventional low-enriched uranium rather than HALEU — is the other stated differentiator.

Supply Chain

NuScale sits upstream in nuclear plant construction, supplying reactor modules through more than 60 specialized suppliers. Its exclusive partner ENTRA1 builds and operates plants; at RoPower, NuScale subcontracts to Fluor. No neighbor transcript names NuScale as a customer.