[!todo] Seed note. A starting point, not a finished note yet.
Small modular reactors (SMRs) generate roughly 50-300 MW per unit, versus about 1,000+ MW for a conventional reactor, and are meant to be built in a factory and shipped rather than constructed on site. The core bet is that standardization and assembly-line repetition can deliver the falling costs that bespoke large plants never achieved, turning nuclear from a mega-project into a manufactured product. As of 2026 the thesis is largely unproven at commercial scale: designs from NuScale, X-energy, Kairos, and Oklo target the late 2020s and early 2030s, and AI data-center demand has produced the first large corporate orders. Whether they escape the Negative Learning Curve is the open question. Seeded from Nuclear Energy.