South Korea has approved a record 2027 budget: 820.9 trillion won, equivalent to approximately $599 billion, representing a 12.8% increase over the current year. Among the standout items is funding for future technologies, with small modular reactors — SMRs — explicitly listed among the seven strategic areas Seoul has committed to supporting intensively.
The Ministry of Science and ICT sees its budget rise to 29.6 trillion won (approximately $21.6 billion), a 24.5% increase over 2026. Funding for artificial intelligence grows by 84.3%, but it is the allocation for so-called “post-AI” technologies that has direct implications for nuclear energy: a 16% increase covering SMRs, advanced biotechnology, and quantum computing. The plan was approved by the Cabinet under President Lee Jae-myung and will now be submitted to parliament for final approval by December.
The framework is built around what the government calls the Seven SEEDs: seven technological sectors identified as long-term growth engines. Alongside SMRs, the list includes nuclear fusion, renewable energy, quantum technology, aerospace, advanced biology, and critical materials supply chains. The underlying logic is straightforward: the expansion of AI demands massive amounts of energy, and Seoul wants to generate it domestically using homegrown technologies. Data centers projected for 2027 alone will require approximately 6.3 gigawatts of installed capacity — the equivalent output of four or five Korean-scale nuclear reactors.
On the SMR front, the roadmap is well-defined. A public-private consortium will launch detailed engineering design of the i-SMR in 2027 — South Korea’s indigenous light-water modular reactor — with a target to commercialize it by 2035. In the following decade, the focus shifts to fourth-generation reactors: liquid metal, molten salt, and gas-cooled designs, each tailored to specific markets such as industrial heat, naval propulsion, and distributed power generation. On fusion, the government aims to develop both a demonstration reactor and a commercial one in parallel, compressing the timeline compared to the traditional sequential approach.
The overall research and development budget is set at 39.5 trillion won, an 11.2% increase and the highest level ever recorded in the country’s history. The fact that this marks the second consecutive year of double-digit R&D growth is not a minor detail: it signals a consistent political choice, not a one-off driven by the electoral cycle. Seoul is building an industrial position in advanced nuclear that aims to cover the entire value chain — from reactor design to technology exports targeting emerging markets.
If the roadmap holds, South Korea could become by 2035 one of the few countries in the world with a certified and operational commercial SMR. That would have direct implications for global nuclear energy markets, where the main competitors today are the United States, China, Canada, and Russia. Seoul’s decision to integrate SMRs and fusion into the same industrial strategy underpinning its AI ambitions sends a clear message: advanced nuclear is no longer a long-term bet, but an active lever of South Korean energy and technology policy.
