“"I'm pretty confident we'll have one of them before July 4th of next year, and several more during the year. It's not the back-end electricity production, but it's the whole nuclear system running, demonstrating how it will work" — the U.S. will have at least one next-generation small reactor operating before July 4, 2026.”

Chris WrightThought Leader

U.S. Secretary of Energy

Four privately built advanced test reactors reached criticality under DOE authorization by July 4, 2026 (Antares, Valar Atomics, Deployable Energy and Aalo Atomics), matching Wright's framing of a full system demonstration rather than electricity production — though these are kilowatt-scale test units, not operating commercial SMRs.