Operator
Greetings and welcome to the Nanonuclear First Quarter 2026 Financial Results and Business Update Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Question and answer session will follow the form of presentation. If anyone should require operating assistance, please press star zero on your telephone keypad. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. It is now my pleasure to introduce your host.
Thank you and good afternoon, everyone. Joining me on the call today are J.U., Nanonuclear's founder, chairman, and president, James Walker, our CEO, and Jason Garcha, our CFO. Please note that today's press release and slide presentation to accompany this webcast are available on our website. Before moving ahead, I'll quickly address forward-looking statements made on this call. As reflected in more detail on slide two, today's presentation contains forward-looking statements about NANO's future that are made under the safe harbor provisions of the applicable federal securities laws. You are cautioned that actual results, including without limitation the results of NANO's microreactor development activities, strategies, timelines, and other operational plans may differ materially and adversely from those expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements. Important risk and other factors that can cause actual results to differ from those in our forward-looking statements are contained in our filings with the SEC, including our annual report on Form 10-K filed this past December, which you are encouraged to review. The forward-looking information provided today is accurate only as of today, and NANO disclaims any obligation to update any information provided, except as required by law. With that, I'll turn the call over to JAU, NANO's founder, chairman, and president.
Thank you, Matt, and thank you, everyone, for joining the call today. Nanonuclear continues to differentiate itself as a microreactor developer with a focus on vertical integration across the nuclear fuel supply chain. We are advancing our Kronos MMR, a high-TRL, high-temperature gas-cooled reactor design backed by decades of operating history and meaningful prior capital investment, which we believe can significantly de-risk future construction, licensing, and deployment. We expect the compact, modular design of our Kronos MMR system to support factory fabrication, repeatable construction, and learnings that can accelerate deployment timelines and drive cost efficiencies over time. Importantly, we believe the inherent safety profile of our Kronos MMR can enable a smaller footprint, co-location, and off-grid deployment, unlocking high-value applications previously unavailable to traditional nuclear reactors. We pair this foundation with a focus on vertical integration across critical aspects of the nuclear fuel supply chain, which we believe will give us an advantage over our competitors. uniquely positioning us to expedite reactor deployment, benefit from growing nuclear renaissance, and enhance long-term economics of our reactors. Turning to our Q1 highlights, we continue to make meaningful progress across business during this quarter. Our Kronos MMR continues to advance towards licensing and construction. We completed site characterization and drilling at the University of Illinois and are incorporating those results into our planned construction permit application to the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. We also signed a formal MOU with the Board of Trustees at the University of Illinois, detailing the next steps as we advance the project. The state of Illinois announced that we will receive 6.8 million dollars in incentive awards, underscoring growing support for advanced nuclear technology in canada we continue to make progress towards initiating formal licensing following our acquisition of global first power now rebranded as true north nuclear and lastly we're advancing discussions with numerous supply chain partners for key components and law lead items as well as discussions with commercial enrichment provider and TRISO manufacturers to procure fuel for our first Kronos MMR prototypes. On the commercial side, we signed a feasibility study agreement with Bob Rupon to evaluate the potential deployment of many Kronos MMR systems to provide up to one gigawatt of power for their AI data center and manufacturing campus under development. We believe this announcement highlights the potential scalability of our platform for customers with significant energy needs. Nano is also expanding its pipeline of potential data center, industrial and military customers interested in Kronos for a range of power needs. Nano saw growing interest with potential strategic partners highlighted by a recent MOU with DS-STANCIC to explore localization, manufacturing, and deployment opportunities for Kronos's reactors in South Korea and the broader Asian region. DS-STANCIC is a leading South Korean industrial enterprise with extensive capabilities in energy, chemical processing, and advanced manufacturing, providing a strong platform to support commercialization of our technology. We also signed an MOU with MRS goal to explore integration of their EPC capabilities for deployments for our Kronos MMR systems on federal and commercial sites. These announcements reflect a broader trend of interest from strategic partners, including established companies with decades of experience with large-scale energy and industrial infrastructure projects who recognize the value proposition of Kronos. As it relates to our strategic focus on vertical integration, we also made progress towards expanding our conversion and transportation capabilities through active exploration partnerships and acquisitions. In addition, our strategic affiliate list technologies received a key radioactive material license for Tennessee's demonstration facility, while also announcing plans to invest $1.38 billion over time to build a commercial enrichment facility in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, supported by its patented laser enrichment technology. Each of these announcements reinforce our progress in securing our nuclear fuel supply From a financial perspective, we raised gross proceeds of $400 million through an October private placement, significantly strengthening our balance sheet and extending our operational runway. This capital raise included participation from a growing base of institutional investors, reflecting increased confidence in our strategy and execution. We were also added to the Morgan Stanley National Security Index, further expanding our visibility among institutional investors. Our Q1 progress reflects our continued execution, advancing chronos towards licensing, construction, expanding commercial traction, working to expand our vertical integration across the nuclear fuel supply chain, and maintaining our strong financial position to support execution of our long-term strategy. We believe our progress to date differentiates technology and strategy have positioned us to be a key benefactor of the global nuclear renaissance, driven by several durable secular growth trends. These include growth in demand and reliable baseload energy for AI data centers, industrial resharing and a broader electrification, energy sustainability, independence and climate mandates, and unprecedented policy support. Recent developments in the U.S. power markets are bringing increased focus on each of these trends. Electricity demand tied to AI data centers and other power-intensive applications is expanding faster than the new generation and transmission can be delivered, creating rising concerns around power availability, grid expansion, and energy affordability. In January, the administration supported an emergency auction organized by the largest regional grid operator aimed at driving 15-year power purchase agreements to fund an estimated $15 billion of new generation. This same grid operator is also considering co-location generation policies to help large energy users bring supply closer to demand. While these actions are important and reflect a growing recognition of current power bottlenecks, they alone are unlikely to close the structural gap between demand growth and reliable supply. Against that backdrop, we believe assets capable of delivering high uptime, long-term costs, certainty, and operational resilience independent of constrained grid infrastructure are likely to command a meaningful premium in the future. We view our Kronos MMR as an ideal future solution to address these challenges which are expected to intensify in the years ahead. By offering the potential to provide behind-the-meter or off-grid baseload power directly to the end users and customers, we can help meet expected demand growth without driving higher costs for everyday Americans. In short, the recent actions across the country are reinforcing the need for global nuclear renaissance and highlighting what we have long believed. Reliable, clean baseload energy is a strategic necessity and we are building our chronos mmr as a next generation solution aligned with national priorities customer needs and long-term economics of the ai driven energy future before handing the call over to our ceo james i'll briefly highlight why we view 2026 as an important year with multiple potential catalysts offering the opportunity to create shareholder value first we expect progress towards regulatory licensing of chronos in the u.s and canada we are targeting submission of a construction permit application to the nrc in the coming months to formally begin the u.s licensing process this submission will represent a key milestone that could set the stage for initial construction at the university of illinois in mid to late 2027. Second, we see potential for several commercial announcements this year, reflecting growing interest in our Kronos MMR from customers in several markets. Third, we're advancing discussions on commercial partnerships and acquisition opportunities across nuclear fuel supply chain, providing the potential to address key bottlenecks in areas like conversion and field transportation. And lastly, we expect additional progress towards strategic partnerships that could accelerate and de-risk large-scale deployment of our reactors, while also significantly expanding commercial opportunities globally. With that, I'll turn the call over to James.
Thank you, Jay. Let me start with a brief update of our University of Illinois prototype project, which will be essential to advancing our Kronos MMR towards commercial deployment. As Jay mentioned, we've completed site characterization and drilling and also signed an MOU with U of I's Board of Trustees to outline the next steps for the design, construction, ownership, and operation of our Kronos MMR system on campus. We remain on track to submit our construction permit application to the NRC in the coming months under the Part 50 licensing pathway. Our team is working on the application closely with AECOM and other partners and have begun engaging with the NRC for several months to ensure alignment on scope and technical requirements. In parallel, we're advancing discussions to procure key long-lead components, including discussions around reactive pressure vessel capacity, fuel enrichment and fabrication, graphite supply, and other key components. Based on our progress to date, we aim to begin construction in mid to late 2027 and see a realizable roadmap to a full-scale prototype online in or around 2030. Our team is also evaluating opportunities to accelerate this schedule and secure additional project funding to reduce overall capital costs. Turning to our growing pipeline of commercial opportunities, we believe growing commercial interest has been driven by Kronos' compelling value proposition. Kronos has a strong safety profile that we expect to enable co-location directly at the customer site and provides the option for off-grid power. Kronos is also particularly well-suited for large-scale, multi-unit deployments where reactors can be connected and scaled over time to match customer demand. Its modular architecture and compatibility with factory fabrication and standardized production create the opportunity to capture meaningful economies of scale as we deploy at larger scales. We believe manufacturing efficiencies combined with operational learning curves can position us to achieve highly competitive economics over time. while still delivering the 24-7 reliability and uptime that data centers, industrial customers, and other mission-critical users require. Moreover, Kronos' patented flexible design also provides the ability to serve projects with smaller power needs requiring only one or several units, expanding our served available market to new applications previously unavailable to nuclear energy. During the quarter, we announced a feasibility study with Barupon to evaluate the potential deployment of up to one gigawatt of power to support their AI data center and manufacturing We are actively advancing the study, which includes the site evaluation, project scoping, and timeline development. Following completion, we'll aim to perform EPC cost estimates, begin early project development activities, and work towards finalizing a formal agreement to sell our reactors. Beyond Barupon, we continue to build a growing pipeline of prospective customers across data center, industrial, and military applications. A consistent theme across these discussions is the need for reliable baseload power, particularly solutions with favorable footprints that can be deployed behind the meter to reduce grid dependence and accelerate deployment timelines. Notably, power requirements for these projects range from below 50 megawatts up to 1 gigawatt plus. We also see meaningful opportunities in additional markets where Kronos is well-suited, including remote communities, mining operations, and other energy-intensive applications requiring reliable off-grid solutions. And, as Jay highlighted, we're making progress towards several strategic partnerships we believe can further expand our commercial reach and accelerate deployment, beginning with our recent MOU with DS Danzok. We recently announced a collaboration with DS Danzok, a leading South Korean industrial company, to accelerate deployment of our Kronos MMR in South Korea. DS Danzok brings deep capabilities and operational experience across energy, chemical processing, and advanced manufacturing, along with longstanding relationships across key industrial and government stakeholders in South Korea. We're confident their credibility within the Korean industrial ecosystem can facilitate engagement with state-owned entities, as well as potential Korean industrial customers seeking reliable, carbon-free baseload energy. As such, our collaboration with DS Danzok has the potential to meaningfully de-risk regulatory licensing, as well as accelerate site identification and project development, facilitate introductions to prospective customers, and support localization of manufacturing and component production within South Korea. Moreover, we also see this collaboration as a pathway to strengthen project financing opportunities and establish broader strategic partnerships that can accelerate commercialization and deployment in South Korea, one of the world's most sophisticated nuclear and industrial markets, as well as the broader Asia region. Now that we've touched upon Kronos' growing commercial momentum and value proposition, I'd now like to elaborate on Kronos' technical differentiation. Kronos is supported by a proven and well-understood foundation with nearly a decade of development and an estimated $120 million invested into its design by its prior owner. We believe this materially de-risks the platform and provides a strong technical basis as we advance towards licensing and deployment. Kronos' 15-megawatt electric design builds on high-temperature gas-cooled reactor technology that has been deployed and validated across multiple countries for more than five decades. Core elements of the design, including trisofuel, helium coolant, and graphite moderation, are mature technologies supported by extensive real-world operating data. Beyond the reactor itself, our balancer plant strategy prioritizes commercially proven systems, including steam generators, turbines, and thermal energy storage technologies already in use in today's concentrated solar plants. We also expect to operate within conservative temperature and pressure parameters that align with successful deployments. As a result, our focus is not on developing new or experimental reactor technology, but on integrating well-understood components into a compact, modular microreactor platform that can be licensed, manufactured, and deployed efficiently. With that operating history in mind, I'll now outline the key advantages of Kronos as a prismatic, high-temperature, gas-cooled reactor. First, on technology readiness, prismatic high-temperature gas-cooled reactors utilize well-characterized materials with established commercial supply chains, and the performance data from prior deployments provides a high TR-level foundation for our design. Second, the safety profile is fundamentally different from other reactor types. TrisoFuel retains fission products at extreme temperatures, helium is an inert coolant, and the design relies on passive heat removal. As such, we don't expect a credible meltdown pathway, and the core can shut itself down without reliance on active safety systems. Third, prismatic high-temperature gas-cooled reactors are inherently simple. There are few active systems and high-stress components, and many elements can be commercially off-the-shelf rather than safety-grade. The core configuration itself has no moving part other than the control rods, and the materials are inert and well understood, contrasting with the complexity of certain other advanced designs. Fourth, prismatic high-temperature gas reactors like Kronos are especially well-suited for export. The use of TRISO fuel presents minimal proliferation risk compared with other fuel technologies, and the superior safety case potentially offers streamlined licensing with international regulators. Fifth, we believe this architecture is uniquely flexible. In particular, the standard design can be deployed for smaller capacities by simply decreasing operating pressure. This flexibility allows Kronos' output to be scaled without redesigned to meet the needs of a wide array of customers. And lastly, we believe these characteristics could enable lower long-term maintenance and stronger economies of scale. And inert coolant, passive safety, and advanced fuel reduce the need for complex chemistry controls and high-maintenance systems. Combined with a simpler design and greater use of non-specialized commercial components, we see opportunity for reduced operating costs, lower maintenance costs, and favorable cost scaling over time. Our focus on vertical integration stems from our belief that one of the largest constraints to deploying advanced reactors at scale isn't the reactor technology. but fuel availability. We're working to gain exposure to several critical stages of the fuel cycle, starting with enrichment through our collaboration with our affiliate, List Technologies. List owns the only U.S.-origin patented laser enrichment technology, and our relationship with List has the potential to provide nano with a differentiated uranium enrichment solution. In parallel, we're exploring opportunities to build our capabilities in conversion and fuel transportation through strategic commercial partnerships and acquisitions. Further progress in each of these areas can not only de-risk future reactor deployments, but also positions nano to generate revenue across the nuclear fuel cycle while remaining aligned with federal funding opportunities and national energy security needs. With that, I'll turn the call over to our CFO, Jason, to provide financial highlights.
Thank you, James. I'll now provide a summary of our Q1 financial performance. Our overall cash position increased significantly during the quarter, ending the period with cash and cash equivalents of $577.5 million. This was an approximate $374 million increase during the quarter ended December 31st, driven by the net proceeds of our successful October 2025 private placement. We're confident our substantial cash balance and proven ability to raise capital at scale position us well to accelerate development and commercialization of the chronos mmr our strong financial position also provides flexibility to pursue value accretive opportunities via mna and strategic partnerships to enhance our vertical integration turning to the income statement q1 loss from operations was 11.6 million dollars the higher year-over-year loss resulted from an approximate eight million dollar increase in operating expenses a substantial majority of these expenses focused on advancement of our chronos MMR and other strategic growth opportunities Q1 net loss totaled six and a half million dollars up approximately three million dollars from the comparable prior year period the net loss was lower than the loss from operations as we earned approximately five million dollars of interest income on our larger cash balance. Net cash used in operating activities increased by approximately $1 million from the prior year period to $4 million. This resulted from the aforementioned increase in G&A and R&D expenses. Net cash used in investing activities totaled $3.1 million and included payments for our Oak Brook, Illinois engineering facility. Before turning the call over to the operator for Q&A, I'd like to reiterate that our strong balance sheet places us in a great position to execute our strategy of advancing our Kronos MMR and enhancing our vertical integration. As we look ahead, we will continue to generate value for shareholders by allocating our time and capital prudently toward opportunities offering compelling return on investment. With that, I'll now turn the call over to the operator to open up the call for Q&A.
Operator
Thank you. We will now be conducting a question and answer session. If you would like to ask a question, please press star 1 on your telephone keypad. A confirmation tone will indicate your line is in the question queue. You may press star 2 to remove yourself from the queue. It may be necessary to pick up the handset before pressing the star keys. Our first question comes from the line of Samir Joshi with HC Wainwright. Please proceed with your question.
Hey, good afternoon, guys, and thanks for taking my questions. So, the one strategic alliance you announced with the DS Danzig group, are there any sort of milestones or catalysts over the next 20 to 18 months that we should be watching out Hi, Samir.
So, yes, I'm quite pleased to answer the question about this, actually, because the plan with DS Danzig is actually a pretty large one. So what they actually wanted was that they envision massive bottlenecks with regard power for their industry. And so when we went over there, me and the technical team, we were talking to them about how we actually create a manufacturing facility there. And we've been working with them in the interim months to break down the reactor into sections and how we would manufacture those sections. What can be done in Korea, what cannot be. So what's been happening over the last few months is we've been looking at what can be fabricated in Korea, what can be sourced there, where materials are going to come from. Because one major thing that companies aren't looking at is that, great, you build a reactor and it gets licensed. How are you going to mass manufacture that reactor? So we're obviously turning our attention to that in the U.S., but the Stanza wants to do the same thing with our reactor in Korea. So what we're likely going to see over the coming year is just more development in that direction. We are going to put together a plan about how we arrive at a centralized, local, core manufacturing position. It's a case of the southern market initially, but it's really the whole East Asia region where there's a huge demand for the product. So in terms of what you are going to see, you're going to see more engagement with us in DS Danzik. You're going to see that MOU advancing into more critical planning stages. At some point, you're going to start seeing, it's difficult to say exactly, the timelines now. You're going to see industrial factories that are going to be built for the purposes of mass manufacturing the reactor. And you're going to see additional partnerships between us and them regarding certain key strategic things like partnerships on graphite acquisitions and fuel supply and things like that. get things into place. The other part as well you're going to see is that there's a big demand for this. So you're probably going to see some related news about our interaction with the government, with KHNP, with big vendors in South Africa. And ultimately, as you'll see, increasing contracts between ourselves and customers in the region regarding offtake agreements for power, PPA agreements, those kinds of things, as we look to actually ourselves so that when we hit that period when we have the reactor fully constructed and licensed we were then readily able to start manufacturing reactor immediately achieve economies of scale and then start installing those reactors on mass understood thanks for that color James so should we also talk about strategic partnerships worldwide but also within the US and North America Should we also include like an EPC kind of a strong partnership signed in this region? Yeah, so this is a very good point, actually, because now is that we are on the verge of submitting our construction permit. We're very close to finishing that submission. Now, when that goes in, that means that we can pivot the technical team to be able to refocus on what the next big stages are. And one of the big next stages is going to have to be how we mass manufacture these things. Now, beyond that, there becomes a larger question. Say we have 10 sites, a dozen sites, whatever it is that we need to service. Now, that is a lot of local construction crews that need to be coordinated. And so the EPC element to this becomes quite important, because when you are doing that kind of digging that well for the reactor to go into, because there's something in that concrete. That's all stuff that nano doesn't have to be involved in. It can locally contract out. But that's still a huge amount of coordination. So you might have seen partnerships between ourselves and Amoresco and Hatch. And previously, actually, even Hyundai, I think, were involved in looking at how we deploy this reactor. around the world. So the EPCM part of this is going to be a fairly large component of how we deploy here. So we have made a few announcements as we begin to look at how we deploy these things, how it gets coordinated. That is obviously a very separate thing to DS Damsip where they are going to be an industrial factory partner. So they wouldn't be doing EPC.
But those EPC contractors in the U.S. are going to be very important. in South Korea they're going to be just as important as well understood thanks for that clarification and then just one last one the construction permit should we see any like news prior to your like submitting the application which also is it on track for like first half of this year it is on track for the first half this year you know it's actually going very well at the moment we've been quite aggressive about it.
So we've worked the team pretty hard on this one because it is a very big differentiator. There's actually not many companies, there might be a lot of reactor companies that are sprouting up because it's a hot market, but there's nobody putting in for a construction permit because it is a big difference between a paper reactor that you can make in your bedroom and an application to actually build. There's a lot of technical data that need to go into it. I wouldn't say we're going to announce anything prior to the submission specifically on this but we will announce when it gets submitted because it is it is important to let industry know where we are and it is as well a very good indicator for the market that this is a very credible thing that's being taken forward at a time when you know there's not a lot of reactors being constructed and if we stick to our timelines we should still be the first company in the U.S. to build a full-scale licensed micro-reactor system.
Thanks, James. Congrats on the progress and good luck.
Operator
Our next question comes from the line of Nate Pendleton with Texas Capital Bank. Please proceed with your question.
Good afternoon and congrats on the continued progress. Staying on the same topic, James, in your prepared remarks, you mentioned looking at ways to accelerate the 2030 timeline for the UIC project. Can you elaborate on the potential pathways there?
Sure. So it's a very good question. So obviously, what's happened very recently is there's been a huge amount of government pressure that has come on to the NRC to try and expedite timelines. And you've seen that manifest in things like the formal licensing period being firstly reduced to 18 months and then subsequently 12 months. So there's a possibility that the licensing process is expedited for us. Now, I would say with our 2030 timeline, we've not factored into consideration these adjustments, because we want to be as conservative as possible, but there's also a reality to the assessment of a reactor system for any regulator anywhere in the world, and their principal focus is safety. And to interrogate that property for any design, it is still very difficult to expedite that, even if you throw people at the problem. So the 2030 timeline could be expedited. It's certainly possible. But it's prudent, I think, for us to stick to that because there has been a tendency in recent years of companies to make very ambitious date targets. And I think all of those are going to be missed now, or they're just going to keep evaluating and moving things right. We don't really want to be in that situation. If we say 2030 maybe gets delivered earlier, great. If there are expedited timelines that benefit us as well, fantastic. I would say that aside from those sort of things, obviously, we will work on the construction, get all that expedited. We've got a lot of resources already that we can pay for the construction of this. A lot of it will depend on industry and supply chains and those kind of things. But those things we're already identifying now and working on. So a lot of it is already de-risked. The other thing I would say, too, is that what's missed a bit in industry is that a lot of companies might be focused very in the near term on getting their first reactor constructed and licensed. And obviously, that's a very important milestone. But when you hit that period and you have a reactor that can be commercially sold, how do you actually get economies of scale? You need to be able to mass manufacture it. So when we talk about expediting the timelines, it would be very nice to hit 2030 and be in a position where we are actually able to start mass selling the reactor. And that's going to mean that over the next few years, while the reactor is being constructed, we do actually refocus a lot of our attention on reactor core manufacturing facilities, how these things are going to be mass produced, how the EPCM contractors are going to get into place for coordinating localization. So there's two answers to the question. There's one, there's a lot of initiatives that can benefit us and can move our timeline forward. And the other part is that if we really want to expedite ourselves as a business, we need to attack this problem now. So once the construction permit goes in, we really want to focus people's energy on getting these, what can actually be manufactured in the U.S.? How much can we centralize them? All of these different considerations will come into it. Which partners do we need to bring in to make certain components? Let's centralize their production capacities within this facility as well. All of this is going to be very important so that we hit the ground running when it gets to 2030, hopefully earlier. But again, the reason why we haven't adjusted those timelines is that myself and a lot of others in Nano, we've done a lot of licensing before. And we're very familiar with what's typically involved. And even though there are pressures on the NRC to expedite things, it still seems prudent to us to keep the longer timelines because the evaluation process, it is difficult to see how it could be shortened substantially from what it currently is.
Yeah, that makes complete sense. So thanks for that detail. And then shifting gears a little bit for my follow-up, can you talk a bit about your decision to announce the request for information for low-key MMR? Specifically, what options are your team looking at for that reactor design, and have you received any notable feedback?
So we did. So the interesting part about this was that the Loki design can be thought of a bit like a scaled-down Kronos reactor. So as we work on Kronos, it has immediate benefits for the advancement of the Loki reactor. But the Loki reactor was originally envisaged as being a solution for space power. Now, when we began looking at actually attributing more resources towards Loki, we looked at who the previous interest came from. And that was predominantly things like Blue Origin, NASA, these kind of groups were interested in it because it was a very advanced space reactor type. And this kind of examination of additional resources being allocated into Loki was coming at the same time when there was an emerging bigger push into space. And we realized actually that we were in a very advantageous position to produce a working system that could actually supply power for a lot of these initiatives. So whether it was zero gravity or low gravity because it was a base. And this could be for a variety of different applications in the space program. But we are not a space industry either. We don't have space engineers, people who are involved in that space. So if we are going to pursue this, it needs to be done in partnership with groups that are involved in that space and know what they're doing. So when we put out the RFI, effectively we were looking for partners already involved in that and they were looking for power. So what we can say is that there were a number of companies that were looking for power that were not involved in that space, launch companies, people like that. So we did receive a large number of RFIs, and I believe we just completed a submission with one at the moment. Obviously, these are very early days, and we're just putting our toe in the water of the space industry. And it's not to say that Loki couldn't be applied in terrestrial environments either. But certainly we want to take advantage of the interest in the space industry. Loki had a big head start on a lot of other space reactor types. Years and years and millions and millions of investment. And so that's what precipitated our interest to partner with people in the existing space industry. Because nuclear we know very well. Space industry, a little bit foreign to us.
Well, thanks for taking my questions, and congrats again. Thank you.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Jeff Gramp with Northland Capital Markets. Please proceed with your question.
Good evening, guys. Thanks for the time. James, I'm curious, with respect to the supply chain and some of the work you guys are doing to engage, you know, various partners and strategics there, what what's your all kind of assessment on the longest lead times or most challenging parts of that puzzle that that need to get solved sooner rather than later and is there any imminent need from your standpoint to solve any of these say in calendar 26 or would you say you have a little bit of time given the um the timing with engaging with the nrc getting the permit that sort of thing thanks so this is this is actually a very good question i think it's pertinent to anybody involved in the nuclear space at the moment.
So what I would say the advantage we have with Kronos is the vast majority of components are not that specialized. So the complete adjacent plant that converts the thermal output of the reactor into electricity, as an example, basic turbine systems, even things like heat exchangers, control rod mechanisms, the Citadel thing, these are all things that can be built independently of any NRC involvement. Obviously, they need to be up to a certain standard which we can ensure. But the vast majority of components, we don't need to worry about the long lead times. These are things that can be readily manufactured now, or there are immediate solutions that are very obvious that can be put together in short order. Now, there are actually components, though, that are longer lead items. So there's a number, like our reactor and a number of other reactors use like nuclear grade graphite. And I would say that's an item that needs special consideration because there's only, as far as I know, three nuclear-grade graphite producers in the world. I think two are in China and one is in Japan. Now, what that means is that obviously there's going to be a lot of demand for these things, but it's also too much to expect more nuclear-grade graphite to come online anytime soon. The reason why is that principally a lot of these manufacturers of this substance are located at the mine site. So first of all, you need, you know, the graphite mine. And then to get yourself to a point where you reach that sort of certification level where you're at an acceptable level of quality, that can take a substantial amount of time. So the time to bring a mine online, to get producing, and then get it certified, you could be looking at more than 10 years. So I expect at some point in the future, North America will bring on some nuclear-grade graphite line. But for the next few years, what we expect to do is just buy or even maybe even co-build production lines to make our graphite blocks with these manufacturers. So that's probably going to take us some investment that goes into that. We're obviously talking with them. We know what their prices are. And we're arranging for the first and first of a kind and second of a kind cause with these suppliers now. So that's obviously an important part of it. The other major part for the U.S. is the fuel supply. Now, the U.S. is obviously throwing money back at the problem. The DOE has put billions of dollars back into things like enrichment. But there's bigger bottlenecks beyond that. There's conversion considerations to provide the feed grade. Nano is actually investing a substantial amount of labor and involves itself in that. It can have its own uranium hexafluorize that it can then provide to enrichment companies. So it keeps ownership of that fuel. But for everybody involved in it, you know, that enrichment capacity to come online, whether it's Centris or Arano or List Technologies or General Matter or even Urenco increasing their capacity, the timelines on that are a little bit uncertain. So that's principally also why Nano has opted to use, to make a reactor that can utilize LEU, because that's fuel that can be manufactured today. now there's going to be that's fine because most of the answer is use halo fuel so that means that even they might even have much longer wait times to get towards that fuel than we do because one they're going to need a cerebral thing if they're going to need a category 3 site to be upgraded to a cat 2 site that could take some time by the facility be licensed up to a level to it so it can handle CAT2 material, so 10% to 20% material. That could be a long lead time too. We don't have to wait for that, which is fortunate. We could benefit from HALU fuel, and the reactor will have the ability to switch out the LEU for HALU in the future, but we want to get going as soon as possible. But the fuel supply thing needs a lot of consideration. And then related to that it also is the fabrication of the Triso. Now, there are several companies that are really leading in this space. I would say Standard Nuclear in partnership with Framitone. Framitone obviously has a huge experience with fuel. And BWXT, again, very experienced company, very competent. So, I don't think there's any risk that these big companies don't know how to do this kind of thing. What could happen with them is that there could be a bit of a bottleneck on fuel supply just because of the demand so getting in now and putting in the orders is going to be very important and then two the what we're weighing up at the moment is the right contract because even though we understand the first-of-a-kind reactor might be expensive we need to have a sustainable fabrication toll fee applied to the material that we supply the fabricators so they can make the try so well and this is principally our strategy too we're going to invest very heavily into the fuel supply so we can own our own fuel and supply to the fabricators so we don't get stuck. But they will still have to increase their capacity probably to meet the market expectations. And I would say those are principally the main issues, not issues exactly, but longer lead items that need consideration.
But beyond those, even the reactive vessel that you know the capability exists to do that in North America it's those it's those longer lead items the fuel and the graphite I think which need more consideration and earlier engagement to de-risk great I really appreciate that answer James you kind of hit on the follow-up that I was hoping to ask on the fuel side of things you guys have been seemingly increasingly vocal about some acquisition or strategic opportunities to put some capital to work there. So I was just hoping to get a little bit of an update on, I guess, level of maturity or intensity of conversations with different companies in that endeavor or just any kind of, yeah, I guess, updates on what we could see from you guys in that avenue of the cycle.
Sure. So I'm going to be a little bit careful because obviously it's not public information at the But I don't think it's any great secret that we've been very concerned about the fuel supply chain. And because we're obviously very focused now as we get on in advancement about mass manufacturing a reactor, we want to make sure the fuel supply is in place. And part of that over the last few years has involved us looking at fuel supply options. And that involves, obviously, we had a related party transaction called List Technologies that we were behind the creation of. And that is a separate entity that we have a partnership with for enrichment. It's old Cameco Tech. It had very good results in the 90s. So that has reasonable levels of confidence that we'll get that to a place where it can eventually enrich. But the lead time on that is still going to be after when we want to get going with the mass-manufactured reactors. So that means that we need to be working with companies like Urenco that are enriching now. They can enrich the LEU, which is the fuel that we need for our reactor. But even then, if you look at enrichment and you look at all the buildback of enrichment, that actually creates the next bottleneck, which is the uranium hexafluoride. So we identified this, I think, back as early as 2023. And for a while, we were in discussions with countries like Namibia, which were large uranium producers about potentially building facilities in country to take yellow cake and make it into that uranium hexafluoride product for export. I don't mind saying that we have found better options than that, and we've made substantial progress with the governments, the national governments, on the acquisition of some of these facilities. I can't give a lot more details at the moment, but I would expect you will see sometime this year some big announcements in that space as we complete some of those discussions and acquisitions.
All right. Well, stay tuned. Best of luck. Thank you, guys.
Operator
Next question comes from the line of Sheriff Elmarabi with BTIG. Please proceed with your question.
Hey, thanks for taking my questions. You know, I missed a little bit of your response on LU versus Halo Fuel, but I thought it was pretty interesting. So a couple more on that. From a regulatory point of view, are we talking about a separate regulatory process at NRC or CNSC to use one versus the other, or is it kind of one approval to run at any enrichment level?
It's a good question because when we do get the reactor licensed, we'll almost certainly get it licensed so we can demonstrate that it could operate with halo fuel. We're in a nice position to be able to do that, and the reason why is the operating parameters that we use for our reactors are enormous. So, for instance, if we're operating at like 600 degrees centigrade, the melting temperature is 1,800. Now, when you've got that kind of margin, then the safety case that you submit to the NRC for a higher enriched fuel is fairly straightforward. I don't think a lot of companies are in that kind of advantage position. So when they are licensing their reactors, they will do it at halo level directly, whereas our safety parameters basically allow us to do it simultaneously. The main challenge, I think, with the HALU is that it's not that it can't be done. Like, you know, we've been enriched much higher up to HEU levels for decades. It's really the fact that in the U.S. at the moment, there's no commercial CAT-2 site. I think B2XT does have a CAT-1 site, but obviously that's very centered towards military and would make everything very expensive if you've manufactured through there. So it's a question of the NRC will need to upgrade sites to CAT2. They will need to upgrade fuel facilities to be able to handle halo fuel and the proliferation, the increased proliferation concerns that attribute to that fuel. None of those proliferation concerns go away once it's fabricated, but it's still a process the NRC will need to go through for that enrichment of fuel. So it's an interesting thing. We want to take advantage of halo fuel as much as everybody else. But, like, having that option to license the reactor immediately so it can be deployed with any U, and then once the HALU is available, immediately switch it out without further licensing engagement is going to be a very important part of the strategy here.
Yeah, that's interesting. It sounds like it's not as binary as for other operators. So, just one more on University of Illinois. you guys signed that MOU kind of lengthening your relationship. It looks like Illinois will lend a hand designing the reactor. So do they retain a commercial stake when you look to commercialize your design down the road?
No. So they will be the owners and operators of the first-of-a-kind reactor system, and they will supply a huge amount of labor and resources into this project to make sure the first-of-a-kind reactor is built. But beyond that, we own and operate the design of this reactor, and the commercial ventures at URUC will be nanos exclusively. Now, the University of Illinois, the big benefit to them is obviously a reactor system that provides them clean energy for their campus system. And also, it's obviously they have got a big nuclear engineering department that they all benefit from involved in this. So it's obviously a big draw, you know, if you're training nuclear engineers to say we're building this next generation Gen 4 reactor system. So they get immediate benefits from this first of a kind. But beyond this, once we have a commercial venture, that will be a strictly nano endeavor.
Great. Hey, thanks for taking my questions.
Operator
Thank you. Our next question comes from the line of Sabaj Chandra with StoneX. Please proceed with your question.
Yeah. Hey, Jen. A couple of, I guess, NRC questions. So, first, the licensing, so you got on the reactor. To what degree is the balance of plant, you know, in that process? And as you sort of, you know, address these various use cases, does that again go to the NRC? So, just sort of confused there on where that distinction is. between the reactor and balance the plant?
No, it's actually a very good question because, for instance, you know, ironically, most of the Kronos MMR system is not a nuclear system. So, for instance, even though, you know, your reactor vessel is, it needs to be nuclear qualified up to a certain level so it can house the reactor itself, it can still be manufactured in a facility that the NRC does not need to oversee that facility. So if you're fabricating that reactor vessel, that facility does not need inspection. Now, the component does need to meet a certain standard. So there's still, when you even get to those sort of parts that are instrumentally important in a reactor deployment, there's still that nuance. I think when the NRC mostly care about safety systems, how safe a reactor is. And so their assessment only becomes relevant when it is a nuclear device. So, okay, you know, the balance of plants. So you could say things like the entire adjacent plant. So you've got the secondary coolant loop that stores power that creates essentially a battery. So you can ramp up and ramp down very quickly. it's a non-nuclear device that is a heat sink device that sits outside the nrc the adjacent plant where you have the turbine systems that convert heat to electric again that would be the roughly the same sort of contraption you would find for a gas operation as you would for a nuclear operation again that sits outside of the nrc now as you get closer to the reactor then it becomes a bit more blurry because say for instance the citadel which is cavity that the reactor sits in, so you dig that into the ground. Now obviously that can be built by local contractors, that can be concreted, and the steel can be put in. Now the standard has to be up to scratch, and you need to be able to demonstrate that it has met those requirements. But the construction itself is not as relevant as the operation of the reactor system, Because what's likely going to happen here is that I think it's part 52, subpart F. It allows for the, once a reactor is licensed at the NRC, like Kronos will be in, say, 2030, all the subsequent reactors after that will inherently be licensed to be deployed. So you wouldn't need much more regulatory engagement, and you're going to have a big cost saving as a result of that. Now, there's some nuance to that because you still need to be able to supply the NRC with information that they would need at any one time if they wanted to inspect a reactor. So you're still going to have to do the geotechnical drilling. Make sure you have all that data. You can demonstrate the ground meets the criteria the NRC allocated. There might have to be inspections of the cores that are being mass produced. Those might need to be inspected to make sure they're up to grade. but you know provided you are meeting all of those criteria you could you could still deploy dozens of those reactors um you know across the country without further regulatory engagement but yeah the majority of the the system could be what we anticipate doing is a centralized manufacturing facility where we do a lot of things like the reactor protection control mechanism the helium service systems the molten salt loops the instrumentation the electrical systems operator training um you know those kind of aspects those are still mostly mechanical engineering items and the majority of the reactor it comes under that and that that a lot of that stuff can be done under say um iso standards rather than um nqa1 um you know nuclear grade standards it does break down but it gets a lot easier after that first reactor is licensed because then you have your template and your standards that you need to meet. And provided you meet those, the actual necessity for further regulatory engagement drops off quite dramatically.
Yeah, thank you. Then I guess, you know, to the AI question, I think initially, you know, AI was about looking through the vast trove of documents and perhaps making it a little bit easier and less repetitive and things like that. But I think lately in the last, you know, a few weeks or so they're talking about, you know, bringing in digital twins for simulation of these things. Do you see, I mean, we see that having a real-time effect in other sectors, of course, and given how lengthy the licensing process is, do you see some of this, you know, having a very material effect on the licensing process? Especially as you sort of, yeah. Sorry, go ahead.
No, no, I was going to say, like, that is my actual big hope because I've been involved in licensing before and it is an enormously complicated thing so just to just i'm not trying to throw vogel under the bus but as you know for instance vogel is being built being being built very competently but say for instance the regulator suddenly says well what about this component of this reactor that was installed two years ago well that's already buried in concrete well how do we know it's safe did it meet you know where's the where's the checklist with regard you know the inspection of this component before is installed and it was encased in concrete Well, we don't have that. Well, that means we need to dig it up. That means there's going to be a delay to the reactor. That means there's going to be an additional cost component. That's why Vogel is so expensive because you get these things. Now, ultimately, that example there is human error. Either someone missed that component, needed it to be qualified, or it got installed without anyone realizing that they had to submit it for qualification or something like that. If you have an AI system, my hope here is that it would actually be able to identify very quickly what needs to be qualified, what needs to be identified, and you actually will reduce the human error of it down substantially because it will creep into it. If you're thinking, it's difficult to even put into, you know, to explain how complicated a licensing process can be. But if you think about a warehouse and you were to fill it with A4 sheets of paper that contained the licensing documentation, you would fill a warehouse. It would be that much paper, millions and millions of documents. It's a crazy, it's a crazy process. Now, for a human, even if you are 99.99% perfect, that still means thousands and thousands of errors just because of the size of the undertaking you're going through. So my hope here is that AI can substantially reduce the risk of things being missed. And there's no reason why a computer that's operating like that, that's very familiar with the process, that's been exposed to recent licensing data, documentation, couldn't immediately identify what needs to be focused on, what does need to be done at certain stages. I think that could be a big step forward for nuclear to reduce times of licensing, errors in terms of components get missed, they get buried in concrete, like the example I gave. That will definitely help us enormously. It would help the whole industry, and I can't see why that won't happen. And that's my big hope for AI. It's not so much reading through all of our submissions and making sure things. It's what needs to be done and when, what has been missed, what could potentially be missed, and that kind of thing. I think that looks very plausible, and if that is plausible, then that makes our life a lot easier, and it will make reactors a lot cheaper in the long run.
Yeah, fingers crossed here as well. Thank you.
I want to thank everyone again for joining us on today's call. The interest and enthusiasm of our investors and market participants is important to us, and we're very grateful for your support. We look forward to providing additional updates in the future. Have a great evening.
Operator
Thank you. And this concludes today's conference, and you may disconnect your lines at this time. Thank you for your participation.
