DIU selects 8 ‘eligible’ companies for nuclear microreactors that could power US bases

Published on April 16, 2025

WASHINGTON — A budding effort between the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU), Air Force and Army to shore up homeland installations with nuclear energy powered by microreactors is moving forward after the DoD determined eight vendors are now qualified to proceed with demonstrating the technology.

Under the Advanced Nuclear Power for Installations (ANPI) initiative, the DIU team aims to field nuclear microreactors that can support operations across domains by supplementing energy sources at DoD installations, whose power is typically drawn from commercial grids.

The Department of Energy describes microreactors as providing 1-20 megawatts of power, while being a transportable size — think of something that could fit within a shipping container. The ANPI effort aims to build more resilient energy grids for military bases with “fixed on-site microreactor nuclear power systems.” Among other goals, the program intends to “field a decentralized scalable microreactor system” that can “meet 100 percent of all critical loads” and invigorate the commercial market for nuclear microreactor technology, according to the DIU release.

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