The event venue: European Commission – Albert Borschette Conference Center – room CCAB 2D – Rue Froissart 36, Brussels

Rational and key objectives

The European Industrial Alliance on Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) aims to accelerate the development, demonstration, and deployment of SMRs in Europe by the early 2030s. A critical success factor for this objective is the emergence of strong market demand from EU industries for stable, affordable, and low-carbon energy.

Within this context, Technical Working Group 1 (TWG1) on Industrial Applications was created to explore the role SMRs can play in supporting the competitiveness of energy-intensive sectors (such as industry, data centers and maritime transport) by providing reliable electricity and heat with a low-carbon footprint. As data centers emerge as major electricity consumers, their alignment with clean and resilient energy sources becomes increasingly vital for achieving climate goals. Over the past few months, a dedicated drafting team within TWG1 has focused specifically on the integration of SMRs with data centers, identifying their energy needs, opportunities, challenges, and initial recommendations.

The objective of this workshop is to present consolidated findings on the potential role of SMRs for data centers and to foster dialogue among key stakeholders, including representatives from the data center sector, SMR vendors, research institutions, energy providers, and policymakers. The workshop will highlight the main conclusions of the recent report, outlining both the opportunities and challenges of SMR integration in the digital infrastructure sector.

The event will support mutual understanding and practical cooperation by featuring:

• a session on SMR fundamentals tailored to the data center sector, aimed at improving their understanding of the SMR ecosystem
• a session reporting the main conclusions and initial recommendations of the drafting team on data centers
• an interactive dialogue between major European data center operators and SMRs to go beyond the report and explore the future capacity plans in Europe, their expectations from SMR providers but also to identify how to coordinate with other TWGs within the Alliance to ensure a unified approach

By encouraging open exchange and building stronger links between sectors, the workshop aims to lay the groundwork for early deployment projects and help drive the development of a robust and demand-driven SMR market in Europe.