NANO Nuclear Energy has pushed another critical piece of its KRONOS MMR program toward preliminary design, this time with French engineering group Fortil.

If there's a corner of the French industrial sector that America should be comfortable leaning into, their nuclear segment is arguably the safest bet. Their 57-reactor fleet, accounting for 70% of the country's electricity generation, is only surpassed by the US and Chinese commercial fleets.

The companies said conceptual design work is nearly complete on the reactor’s Fuel Handling & Storage System, which will manage the safe handling, storage and movement of nuclear fuel throughout operations. The work includes defining subsystem interfaces, evaluating engineering solutions and producing documentation needed for the next design stage.

It’s not the most glamorous part of a reactor, but it’s the sort of picks-and-shovels engineering that separates a reactor rendering from an operating nuclear plant.

Fortil’s dedicated nuclear team is handling multidisciplinary work across mechanical and systems engineering, nuclear safety, instrumentation and control, and radiation protection. The consultancy has more than 2,500 employees across 30 offices in 14 countries, giving NANO access to an international engineering bench as KRONOS moves toward potential fleet deployment.

The milestone follows the NRC’s formal acceptance of the KRONOS Construction Permit Application for a full-scale reactor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. The agency began formal review activities in June, with environmental and safety evaluations expected to progress through 2027. Initial construction could begin in the second half of next year.

NANO’s story has increasingly become about more than a single reactor. The company recently acquired Secured Transportation Services for $13 million, turning itself into a revenue-generating nuclear logistics operator. That business helped execute a record 1.7-metric-ton HALEU shipment from Japan and supported the removal of highly enriched uranium from Venezuela.

The U.S. has secured its largest-ever HALEU fuel shipment, working in partnership with Japan. This significant transfer advances President Trump’s strategy to restore America's energy dominance and power next-generation nuclear reactors. https://t.co/h5Oc6f5kRq pic.twitter.com/EG7kA9Eopg

— NNSA (@NNSANews) May 7, 2026

The company is in the midst of an aggressive and wide-ranging expansion plan with business segments across the nuclear value chain. In just the past year, they’ve advanced a proprietary HALEU transportation package, won a U.S. Air Force innovation contract, and signed an agreement with Supermicro targeting nuclear-powered AI data centers. Additional partnerships are targeting South Korea, the Gulf region and a potential 1-gigawatt Texas data center campus.