ORNL, Kairos Power Forge $27M Pact to Accelerate TRISO Fuel Development

Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Kairos Power signed a $27 million strategic partnership to accelerate TRISO coated-particle fuel qualification and advance Kairos’s fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactor design, with work tied to the Hermes demonstration reactors currently under construction in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The agreement commits ORNL to provide testing, component manufacture, and “key learnings” over the next five years from its specialized facilities, including the Manufacturing Demonstration Facility, Coated Particle Fuel Development Laboratory, and the Irradiated Fuels Examination Laboratory.

Ed Blandford, chief technology officer and co-founder of Kairos Power, framed the collaboration as critical to Kairos’s technical maturation. “DOE’s support has been instrumental in helping Kairos Power accelerate our path to technological maturity,” Blandford said. “By collaborating with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, we gain access to decades of expertise and a unique set of capabilities that we couldn’t find anywhere else. We are pleased to partner with the lab as we work to deploy safe, reliable advanced reactor technology that builds on Oak Ridge’s nuclear legacy.”

Under the pact, ORNL will review and evaluate multiple aspects of Kairos’s fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactor design that uses TRISO coated-particle fuel and molten fluoride salt coolant, manufacture components for reactor development and testing, and assess coated particle fuel performance in ORNL’s fuel development and irradiation facilities. ORNL’s five-year testing horizon is intended to feed engineering updates for Kairos’s Hermes project and to support later commercialization of the planned reactor design.

The collaboration is the fourth formal partnership between ORNL and Kairos Power since 2020. The project list includes 3D-Printed Nuclear Construction Forms (2025), a partnership with ORNL’s Manufacturing Demonstration Facility to develop large-scale 3D-printed polymer composite forms; those forms were used to cast complex, high-precision concrete structures for the Hermes reactor. That prior work establishes a direct manufacturing and construction precedent linking ORNL facility capabilities to on-site Hermes build activity in Oak Ridge.

On financial transparency, the bulk of reporting and ORNL-Kairos statements cite a USD 27 million value for the strategic partnership; one trade outlet, Energy Central, reported the dollar value was “not disclosed,” a contradictory account that remains unresolved in public reporting. Neither the announcement nor available reports provide a detailed budget breakdown or identify funding sources within the $27 million figure.

ORNL Director Stephen Streiffer tied the partnership to broader U.S. energy demand and market goals. “With energy demand expected to increase substantially by 2050, our continued partnerships with U.S. industry, including Kairos Power, are how we will bring more reliable, affordable energy to market,” Streiffer said. Industry commentary has also suggested the collaboration could expand to include other developers, utilities, investors, and national laboratories to form a broader deployment ecosystem, but that expansion remains described as a possible next step rather than a committed element of the current agreement.

Taken together, ORNL’s commitment of facility time and manufacturing capability over five years aims to reduce technical uncertainty for TRISO fuel in fluoride-salt service and produce test results and component deliverables meant to support the design, construction, and eventual operation of Kairos Power’s Hermes demonstration reactors and subsequent commercialization of its fluoride salt-cooled high-temperature reactor.