00:00U.S. micro-reactor company Nanonuclear Energy is on the path to deploy its technology to the Middle East.
00:06This is after signing the first and only nuclear micro-reactor partnership with the UAE.
00:12The agreement aims to help the country go off-grid, power desert data centers, and decarbonize oil and gas fields.
00:19So let's speak to the company's founder, executive chairman, and president, Jay Yu.
00:25Jay, good morning. Good to have you with us, or good evening, probably your time.
00:29Let's just start with the partnership.
00:31What makes the UAE a compelling case for you to have the first partnership in the region?
00:40Thanks for having me.
00:41The UAE is the first Arab nation to actually have a commercial nuclear power plants running.
00:50We have four continuous ones operating right now, which helps generate 5.6 gigawatts of power,
00:58which almost powers about 20% of the population in the Middle East.
01:02Our partnership with EHC Investment, they're looking to help, once again, bring that technology,
01:09which we have a leading micro-reactor technology in the world, our Kronos MMR, which stands for Micromodular Reactor.
01:17We are having a full-scale model being built at the middle of the campus of the University of Illinois,
01:23and we're looking to deploy that across the Middle East eventually.
01:28Okay.
01:29So do you think that with this partnership that the UAE would become the regional hub for deploying those Kronos
01:35into the wider region?
01:37And then that leads me to what are your ambitions in the wider region?
01:44Yeah, so we look at the UAE as a staging point, but our micro-reactors are off-grid.
01:52The issues right now with geopolitical at the Strait of Hormuz, and that's playing a huge burden, I would say,
02:00to the world.
02:00And that puts the spotlight right back into nuclear.
02:03And with our technology, we're able to build that modularly, so that means transporting it through traditional chipping, road, rail,
02:16and we're able to scale nuclear truly because of the modular technology.
02:21And we use advanced fuel technology that essentially can never explode.
02:27So we're looking at the next generation of nuclear technologies to actually scale across the world.
02:33And now with the big boom in AI data centers, especially with NVIDIA announcing earnings today,
02:41that will put a spotlight right back on the energy crisis as well.
02:47So do you see that as the biggest demand sort of point?
02:53Data centers is something else in the region where you could see the most demand out of.
03:01Yeah, I just came back from NVIDIA's headquarters, and their main point and bottleneck is energy, right?
03:09AI data centers consume a massive amount of energy.
03:12And the current administration set for these big tech companies, they're asking them to bring their own power.
03:19So the bottleneck here is energy.
03:22It puts a spotlight right back on nuclear.
03:24And in the Middle East, they're looking to decarbonize this, right?
03:28The UAE is already looking to do this.
03:31Other countries are pouring in.
03:33Look at the news today with the president sending the Saudi agreement to Congress, right?
03:40They're looking to also leverage that again.
03:43So that means Saudi Arabia is looking to leverage civil nuclear power.
03:47And that puts a spotlight, once again, on advanced nuclear technologies like what nanonuclear energy is creating.
03:55Okay.
03:55And what should we expect those reactors to be used for, Jay?
04:00And also, just how quickly can we see them up and running here in the UAE and in the wider
04:05region once if deployed?
04:09Yeah, we recently signed a multiple gigawatt deal with Tillman Digital Holdings, which is, they're a large infrastructure company.
04:18We're aiming towards, in around 2030s, up to 2040s, of multiple gigawatts of deployment.
04:27And, you know, use cases, island communities, and remote habitation, right?
04:35So a lot of the Middle East's desert landscape, we're able to deploy that technology off-grid and bring clean
04:45energy and consistent baseload energy to the region.
04:51And, Jay, just finally, you spoke about the geopolitics in the region as a challenge that is being posed right
04:58now.
04:58What about the climate in this part of the world?
05:01Is that something that factors in your assumptions at all?
05:07Yeah, I think it matches perfectly because you're looking at heat that, especially during the summer days, where it could
05:16reach, in the U.S., we say 140 Fahrenheit, which is pretty much, you could sizzle an egg on the
05:25floor, essentially, right?
05:26That doesn't prevent us from deploying our reactors.
05:30Once again, our high-temperature gas reactor is very safe.
05:35We call it walk-away safe technology because we use the next generation of fuel, next generation of technology that
05:43essentially can never melt.
05:45And then we're looking at city hall.
05:46Let's switch to the Massachusetts level.
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