Bill Gates, Chair of the Gates Foundation, visited South Korea on the 13th. Photo by Yonhap News
Bill Gates, Chair of the Gates Foundation, is meeting government, National Assembly, and business leaders in South Korea to discuss cooperation in small modular reactors (SMRs).
According to major media reports including Yonhap News, Chair Gates arrived in South Korea at 9:20 p.m. on the 13th, landing at Gimpo Airport’s Gimpo Business Aviation Center on a private jet.
Gates is scheduled to meet Prime Minister Han Duck-soo on the 14th and is also reportedly coordinating a closed-door meeting with National Assembly Speaker Cho Jeong-sik. He will meet HD Hyundai Chairman Chung Ki-sun to discuss cooperation on SMR projects. A meeting with executives of SK Group, a major shareholder in TerraPower, is also anticipated.
Gates is the co-founder of Microsoft (MS) and the founder of the next-generation nuclear power company TerraPower. His visit comes as TerraPower is ramping up its next-generation nuclear power projects in the United States.
In April, TerraPower obtained construction approval for its first nuclear power plant in Kemmerer, Wyoming, from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). It is the first case of a commercial-scale next-generation nuclear power plant receiving construction approval in the United States.
Cooperation with South Korean companies has also expanded. In May, HD Hyundai Heavy Industries was selected as the preferred bidder to supply the Reactor Enclosure System (RES), a core facility of TerraPower’s “Natrium” reactor. Natrium is a fourth-generation reactor based on a sodium-cooled fast reactor (SFR) design that uses liquid sodium as a coolant.
Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power acquired a 40 million dollar (about 60 billion won) stake in TerraPower this January.
As the spread of artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly increases power demand from data centers, SMRs are drawing attention as a stable source of electricity. During his visit to South Korea last year, Gates also highlighted SMRs as a means to respond to rising power demand in the AI era.
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