Les European SMRs no longer suffer from a lack of vision, but from a lack of decision. The Brussels Nuclear Energy Summit confirmed it, and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen stated it plainly: nuclear power and renewables now form the acknowledged pairing behind Europe's energy sovereignty. What remains is to give that pairing an industrial translation. Cost control, dispatchable power, deployment at scale, design simplicity: these are exactly the attributes the Commission recognizes as decisive for small modular reactors. One question remains, and only one: whom does Europe choose to back, and by what criteria?
Nuclear and renewables: the pairing behind European energy sovereignty
The world is not waiting for summits to act. China already has two small modular reactors connected to the grid. The United States has mobilized billions through the Inflation Reduction Act. The United Kingdom, Canada, South Korea: all have launched national programs with firm deadlines. This is no criticism aimed at Europe, only a state of play that calls for a response worthy of our ambitions. While Europe deliberates, its competitors deploy. And every month of delay is paid for in technological dependence.
Stellaria: a concrete response to the SMR Industrial Alliance's strategic plan
In the summer of 2025, Stellaria signed a commercial contract with Equinix to supply decarbonized, dispatchable power available 24/7, providing near-total energy autonomy for Europe's future AI data centers. Not a letter of intent: a contract, with deliverables and the commitment of an industrial customer.
For Stellaria, the European Union and the SMR Industrial Alliance offer several levers: regulatory and supply-chain coordination, the structuring of collective tools no single player can build alone, and technical and financial support for projects. Our project intends to play its full part in developing the sector. The Alliance's strategic plan and its targets resonate closely with the work we are already doing.
Target 1, End users: the Equinix contract as the foundation of a tripartite agreement
The Alliance explicitly calls for tripartite agreements between the public sector, SMR developers and energy-consuming industries. We are already in that logic: our contract with Equinix forms the commercial bedrock of precisely such an arrangement, involving a data center operator that needs decarbonized power, available 24/7, with a small land footprint. After a first data center in France powered by Stellarium units, others could follow across Europe. We stand ready to help shape the framework the Alliance aims to formalize by June 2026.
Target 2, Experimental facilities and R&D needs: ALVIN and MEGALVIN
The Alliance seeks to identify and prioritize test facilities for the key needs of SMRs, with a view to the next multiannual financial framework. We are developing precisely two experimental mock-ups: ALVIN, our demonstrator, and MEGALVIN, our prototype, backed by a multi-partner R&D program. By 2030, they will make it possible to irradiate materials, qualify simulation codes and explore fundamental mechanisms such as reactivity insertion. A deliberate contribution to the shared experimental heritage the Alliance is calling on the sector to build.
Target 3, Codes, standards and data exchange: the collaboration with the CEA
Target 3 aims to harmonize technical codes and standards and to streamline technology exchange between Member States. We already work with the CEA's simulation codes, the benchmark reference in Europe for advanced reactors, adapting them to molten salt reactors in return for their use. This collaboration places us naturally to contribute to the harmonization effort the Alliance intends to steer by 2028.
Target 4, Scientific partnerships and value chain: a European network
The Alliance wants to develop a platform connecting SMR projects with qualified partners across Europe. We are already building that network: we work with the European Commission's JRC, with TU Delft, where we co-supervise a doctoral candidate, and with SCK CEN in Belgium. A cross-border, multi-institutional collaboration that prefigures the very partnership fabric the Alliance wants to structure, and one we will multiply in the coming months to build our european supply chain .
Target 6, Training and skills: the SMR bootcamp
The nuclear skills shortage in Europe is a recognized challenge. The Alliance aims to lay the foundations of a European Net Zero Academy on SMRs and AMRs. We have already responded at our scale by setting up an SMR bootcamp in France, designed to train a new generation of engineers in the concrete realities of fourth-generation reactors. A modest initiative today, but one that can become a tangible building block of the system the Alliance is seeking to construct.
Target 8, Safety and regulatory dialogue: the DAC filed with the ASNR
This is perhaps the most tangible proof of our project's maturity. We have filed a creation authorization application for a Basic Nuclear Installation with the ASNR, for a site at the CEA Cadarache center. The application is under review, and exchanges with the safety authority are planned in the coming months, subject to the file's admissibility. The LOI recently signed with the CEA will allow us to launch the concrete siting studies for our installation on a CEA site. The Alliance wants to produce industry position papers in close coordination with national regulators: we will, very soon, be in active dialogue with ours, valuable feedback that can feed into that work.
Six targets out of ten. Six answers documented, committed, under way. Not mere ambitions, but projects that exist, with partners and clear deadlines.
What Stellaria asks of the European SMR Alliance: keep the field of possibilities open
The Alliance's first cycle selected nine projects, but their make-up still rests largely on reactors designed outside the European Union. The Commission has said so itself: this dependence is a strategic vulnerability the second cycle must correct. In March 2026, the Commission went further and published its official SMR strategyexplicitly calling for the industrial deployment of mature European designs and a high level of local content: backing technologies of European origin is no longer an option. It has become a stated direction of the Union.
At Stellaria, we have the technology, an industrial customer, a European academic network, a serious safety file under review with the ASNR, and a site for building the world's first molten salt, fast-neutron prototype. The second call for projects must support the most advanced technologies of European origin. In two years, much has changed. To avoid scattering our efforts, recognizing the dossiers that are most advanced technically and economically becomes essential. We are calling for a reassessment of the dossiers, to select the most technically promising as early as 2026.
Europe's energy future is being built now
Europe has settled the principle: nuclear power and renewables will carry its energy sovereignty together. What it has left to settle is the players. Recognizing today the most mature European SMRs means turning a shared ambition into a real industrial sector. Stellaria will play its full part.
Frequently asked questions about European SMRs and the Industrial Alliance
> What is an SMR (small modular reactor)? A SMR (Small Modular ReactorAn SMR is a lower-power nuclear reactor, generally up to 300 MWe per module, designed to be factory-built and then assembled on site. Its modularity aims to reduce costs, construction times and financial risk compared with large-scale reactors.
> What is the European SMR Industrial Alliance? Launched by the European Commission in February 2024, the Alliance brings together more than 350 stakeholders (industry, researchers, public decision-makers) around a strategic plan to accelerate the development and deployment of Europe's first SMRs by the early 2030s. Its 2025-2029 action plan sets out ten targets, from end-user demand to regulatory safety.
> What is a fast-neutron molten salt reactor? It is a fourth-generation reactor in which the fuel is dissolved in a liquid salt that also serves as coolant. The fast neutron spectrum allows for better use of the fuel material and optimized waste management. Stellaria's Stellarium aims to be the world's first fast-neutron molten salt prototype.
> Why is the Alliance's second cycle decisive for European SMRs? The first cycle selected nine projects relying largely on technologies designed outside the EU. To reduce this strategic dependence, the second call for projects must be able to recognize the European-origin dossiers that are most advanced technically and economically. This is a matter of sovereignty as much as of industrialization.