Kairos Power broke ground on its Hermes 2 demonstration plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, on April 17, marking a step toward what the company describes as the first commercial-scale, power-producing reactor of its kind to be built in the United States under a Nuclear Regulatory Commission construction permit. The company received the permit for the test reactor facility in November 2024 and expects Hermes 2 to begin operating by 2030.
Hermes 2 uses a fluoride salt-cooled, high-temperature reactor design and, once operational, could become the first NRC-licensed non-light-water reactor in the country to produce power. The project's output was increased to 50 megawatts of electricity following a power purchase agreement between the Tennessee Valley Authority and Google, making Hermes 2 the first deployment under a broader agreement between Kairos and Google to develop an advanced reactor fleet intended to supply carbon-free electricity to Google data centers in Tennessee and Alabama.
Deputy Secretary of Energy James Danly, speaking at the groundbreaking, pointed to surging electricity demand driven by artificial intelligence and domestic manufacturing as the driving force behind the renewed push for new nuclear capacity, saying the country needs new power sources built on a faster timeline than traditional large-scale projects have historically allowed. Kairos co-founder and CEO Mike Laufer said the project reflects an iterative development approach the company has applied since breaking ground on Hermes, a smaller nonpower test reactor at the same site, in 2024.
The Hermes 2 site sits within the East Tennessee Technology Park, a location with roots in the Manhattan Project that later underwent a multidecade environmental cleanup effort by the Department of Energy. Hermes 2 will rely on a factory-based manufacturing model, with reactor equipment modules built at Kairos's manufacturing campus in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and shipped to Tennessee for assembly, an approach the company says is designed to shorten construction timelines and create a standardized design that can scale across future commercial deployments.
Source: Nuclear Newswire / American Nuclear Society – https://www.ans.org/news/2026-04-21/article-7964/kairos-power-breaks-ground-on-first-powerproducing-reactor-in-oak-ridge/