KB News Desk
SK Group Chair Chey Tae-won and TerraPower Chair Bill Gates have met twice over the past year, signaling that their companies’ relationship is expanding beyond investment into a strategic partnership aimed at meeting soaring electricity demand in the AI era.
Chey and Gates met over dinner Friday at Seonhyewon in central Seoul to discuss next-generation nuclear power, energy demand from AI data centers and potential global cooperation, according to industry sources Monday.
The meeting followed their talks during Gates’ visit to Korea in August 2025, reflecting increasingly close ties between SK and the US nuclear technology company.
SK Innovation and holding company SK Inc. jointly invested $250 million in TerraPower in 2022, becoming its second-largest shareholder.
At the time, TerraPower had yet to introduce a commercial small modular reactor. Chey nevertheless viewed an early investment in advanced nuclear technology as necessary, given the expected surge in AI-related electricity consumption and SK Innovation’s broader electrification strategy, according to sources.
What began as a financial investment has since broadened into cooperation on TerraPower’s US project, the global SMR market and potential energy solutions for AI data centers.
TerraPower is developing its Natrium advanced reactor in Kemmerer, Wyoming. The project combines a fourth-generation sodium-cooled fast reactor with a molten-salt energy storage system.
The stored heat allows the plant to adjust electricity output according to demand, helping offset the intermittency of renewable energy. That flexibility could make the technology suitable for power-intensive facilities such as AI data centers, which require a stable round-the-clock electricity supply.
The project received a construction permit from the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission in March, becoming the first commercial advanced reactor project to secure such approval.
The regulatory milestone is expected to shift cooperation between SK Innovation and TerraPower from investment toward business development and project execution.
SK Innovation already operates across much of the power infrastructure value chain, including direct liquefied natural gas imports, LNG-fired power generation, batteries and energy storage systems.
The company aims to combine those capabilities with TerraPower’s Natrium technology to develop integrated energy solutions tailored to AI data centers.
Under the envisioned model, LNG power plants and energy storage systems would provide electricity relatively quickly during the initial stage of a project. SMRs would later be added to provide a stable, carbon-free baseload power source over the longer term.
