Who actually has SMRs running?
Headlines feature Western startups, but the only commercial SMRs operating today are Russia's floating Akademik Lomonosov (2020) and China's HTR-PM (2023). China's Linglong One aims to be the first land-based commercial unit in 2026.
Western startups dominate SMR headlines, but the reactors actually running today are elsewhere. Russia's floating Akademik Lomonosov, with two KLT-40S units, has supplied power commercially since 2020. China's HTR-PM, a pebble-bed high-temperature design, reached commercial operation in 2023. Those are the world's operating commercial SMRs as of now.
The next landmark is China's Linglong One (ACP100), set to be the first commercial land-based SMR when it starts up around 2026. The Western fleet — GE Vernova's BWRX-300 at Darlington, NuScale, Rolls-Royce SMR and others — is real and progressing through licensing and early construction, but its first grid connections cluster around 2030.
The tracker counts grid-connected, commercial units, which is why the leaderboard looks very different from the press-release map. It is an honest correction to a field where announcements vastly outnumber operating reactors.