In the arid Al Dhafra region of the United Arab Emirates (UAE), about 400km from Dubai, the last of four dome-shaped reactors at the Barakah nuclear power plant came online last year, on schedule and on budget, in a country with no prior nuclear industry.
Underpinning the project supplying 25% of the UAE’s electricity, the Korea Electric Power Corporation (KEPCO) built four APR-1400 units – large, uranium-based reactors that employ conventional technology to power electricity plants. The deal marked the first time Korean nuclear technology was exported.
After KEPCO’s success in the UAE, the company managed to beat French competitors in the Czech Republic, where one of its subsidiaries was commissioned to build another set of two APR-1400 reactors, scheduled for construction in 2029.
With the Nuclear Energy Agency saying the world needs to triple nuclear capacity by 2050 to help achieve net zero emissions by mid-century, Asian countries are leading the global race to build new reactors, as Western technology falls behind.
Korean, Chinese and Russian companies have emerged as attractive partners for developing countries, in part because of their expertise – from design to operation of nuclear power plants – and because they can provide loans, said Jeong Ik Lee, professor of nuclear engineering at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST).
Despite some opposition from campaign groups and politicians, more countries are turning to nuclear as a low-emissions option to complement renewables, said a 2025 report by the International Energy Agency (IEA). It has heralded a “new era of growth” for nuclear power over the coming decades.
In 2023, at the COP28 climate talks in Dubai, the UAE launched a coalition of governments seeking to triple the world’s nuclear energy capacity by 2050, which has gathered 31 backers so far – many of them developing countries that have never had a nuclear power industry.
China enters race for nuclear influence
Although absent from the COP28 nuclear pledge, China and Russia have emerged as dominant forces in the market. Of the 52 reactors that began construction since 2017, 25 are of Chinese design and 23 of Russian design, IEA data shows.
In the last 15 years, China alone added about as much nuclear energy capacity as the rest of the world combined, according to data from Global Energy Monitor. Korea ranks second by a significant margin.
Becoming a nuclear technology exporter could put China in a strategic position – and the US and Europe at “massive risk”, said Jacopo Buongiorno, nuclear engineering professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
“When building nuclear, you’re almost entering a marriage. It’s a 60 year-long project. It establishes a relationship between the two countries that then can be leveraged for geopolitical reasons,” Buongiorno said. “It’s a very critical piece of infrastructure.”
Despite China’s massive nuclear build-out at home, the economic giant is in the early stages as a technology exporter, Buongiorno said. Still, China’s big ambitions mean it is only a matter of time before Chinese reactors take the lead overseas, he told Climate Home.
“I would be shocked if we didn’t see soon more global projects led by China. They are building reactors like there is no tomorrow at home. The industry has capabilities that would be shameful not to use also in the international scene,” Buongiorno said.
A key part of China’s plan to grow overseas is deploying its Hualong One reactor, which was developed by state-owned nuclear corporations CGN and CNNC. Two of these reactors were completed in Pakistan in 2022. Another is in the planning stages for Argentina by 2028. The reactor has also passed European Union (EU) and UK safety tests.
Russia’s grip on emerging markets
From the perspective of developing countries, many nations have been drawn to nuclear’s emissions-free and stable power, said Buongiorno. But the huge construction costs make partners like Russia – which also provides financing for the projects – more attractive than Western partners, he added.
The country, already a mature nuclear nation, has vast experience positioning the Soviet-era VVER reactor in foreign markets, having built many of them across Eastern Europe in places like Belarus, Slovakia and Bulgaria.
But as more developing countries turn to nuclear power, Russia has started building a new wave of VVER reactors in emerging economies without a nuclear industry, including Iran, Turkey and Bangladesh.
“The entity that exports nuclear power (ROSATOM) is not a company, it’s a branch of the government,” said Lee from KAIST. “They have more financial flexibility with how to finance large projects. In certain areas it’s very difficult to compete with Russia.”
Egypt, for example, has started construction of VVER reactors at the El Daaba nuclear power plant, thanks to a $25bn loan from ROSATOM that will cover about 85% of the construction costs. The plant is expected to generate half of Egypt’s electricity.
Western powers fall behind
Meanwhile, former nuclear leaders US, Japan and Europe have stopped building new projects in the last decade – leaving them with an aging fleet of reactors and a widening skills shortage, experts warned.
“They have a gap in their construction history. This is very critical because the local supply chain is damaged. Know-how of managing these large projects also disappears. That’s why costs increase,” Lee said.
While China has averaged up to seven years for developing new projects since 2017, the US and EU can take almost double – up to 12 years, IEA data shows. For example, the US’s last nuclear reactors – Vogtle 3 and 4 in Georgia – came online seven years late and $17bn over budget.
Meanwhile, the recent artificial intelligence boom in North America and Europe has renewed interest in small modular reactors known as SMRs, which could potentially supply the huge electricity demand expected from data centres, the IEA nuclear report says.
In what could be a game changer for nuclear, SMR investments have started pouring in. At least 16 new nuclear-powered data centres have been announced in the US, between 2023 and 2024 – with buyers Google, Meta and Microsoft actively supporting their development. Governments in the US, Japan and EU have also shown support.
But so far, despite major announcements, few of the projects have actually been built. At a global level, only two SMRs are currently operational: one in Russia and another in China.
Nuclear power projects have also faced concerns from locals. In Japan’s Hokkaido region, where the country is planning its first reactor since the Fukushima incident, Ainu Indigenous people and other residents have fiercely rejected the projects over fears of contamination from nuclear waste.
Pressure to lift financial barriers
Aside from setting a new target, the COP28 nuclear pledge also put pressure on the World Bank to resume financing of nuclear energy projects. This year, the bank finally ended a longstanding ban on backing nuclear power. The Asian Development Bank (ADB) is now considering following suit.
Given that finance is a major obstacle for developing countries, funding from the World Bank and the ADB could help de-risk projects in the Global South, said Victor Ibarra, senior manager of nuclear energy at the think-tank Clean Air Task Force.
“(Multilateral banks’) involvement could open the door for countries like Vietnam or the Philippines to move forward with projects that have stalled in the past due to access to adequate financing,” said Ibarra.
It could also lower over-reliance on Russia and China, allowing developing countries to “naturally have a broader set of partners to choose from”, he added.
Yet the shift by development banks has not gone unnoticed, as green groups have pushed back, arguing that nuclear could become a costly alternative to renewable energy deployment in the Global South.
Lidy Nacpil, a campaigner with the Asian Peoples’ Movement on Debt and Development, described the ADB’s potential return to nuclear financing as a “dangerous distraction and totally unacceptable”.
The Nuclear/Coal-Free Bataan Movement, a grassroots group in the Philippines’ Bataan province, said in a statement that “reviving nuclear financing will only deepen debt, displace communities, and expose generations to irreversible harm”.
Nuclear comeback? Japan’s plans to restart reactors hit resistance over radioactive waste
In a note issued by the ADB last week, draft amendments to its energy policy recognise the role of nuclear power in reducing emissions and say the bank is ready to support countries in strengthening institutional capacity and infrastructure needed to allow for “state-of-the art nuclear power investments”. This is not a final version, it emphasises, as the energy policy review is ongoing until September.
The bank’s current policy rules out financing for nuclear power due to the risks of pollution, weapons proliferation and the “very high investment costs” relative to the bank’s resources. The proposed new policy highlights the role of SMRs in addressing these challenges, as new reactors “offer flexible and scalable solutions”, it says.
Looking further ahead, the IEA expects China and other emerging economies to grow nuclear power much faster than industrialised nations in the coming years. By 2050, more than half of the world’s nuclear fleet is projected to be in these countries.
“If the target is tripling capacity worldwide, developing countries will have to play a big role,” said Buongiorno of MIT. “Nuclear newcomers will have to enter this business. These countries will need to have a piece of that pie.”
