The U.S. Army will award up to $2.2 billion to five companies to design, build and operate nuclear microreactors on five domestic bases, betting on advanced fission to insulate mission-critical installations from commercial-grid outages. The competitive selection, announced August 27 under the service's newly named Janus Program, spans a decade of design, construction and initial operation.
Five Sites, Five Vendors
The Army paired each vendor with a base: Antares Nuclear at Fort Bragg, North Carolina; BWXT Advanced Technologies at Fort Campbell, Kentucky; General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems at Fort Hood, Texas; Radiant Industries at Fort Benning, Georgia; and Westinghouse Government Services at Fort Drum, New York. Each planned reactor will be sized under 20 megawatts electric and occupy fewer than five acres.
Radiant Industries disclosed the largest single agreement — up to $750 million to deploy 15 factory-built Kaleidos units by 2030, beginning with a three-unit installation at Fort Benning. "The Army's $750 million award shows confidence in Radiant's product and ability to manufacture, deploy and safely operate nuclear microreactors for the American military," said Radiant president and COO Tori Shivanandan. Westinghouse will supply its heat-pipe eVinci reactor, which the company says runs for eight years without refueling.
Milestone-Based Payments Through 2028
The contracts are performance-based: vendors get paid as they hit technical gates through the five-year program, and the Army wants at least one microreactor generating usable electricity at an installation by September 30, 2028 — the deadline set by an executive order last year. None of the reactors will use highly enriched, weapons-grade uranium, said Dr. Jeff Waksman, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment.
From Project Pele To Sustained Operation
Janus succeeds the Pentagon's 2022 Project Pele initiative, which developed a portable 1-5 MW reactor concept but never fielded operational units. Waksman said Janus is about "transitioning from designs and experiments to reliable commercial hardware which secures our energy independence," and the Army expects private capital from the vendors to expand the first tranche of five installations to more than 20 reactors over time.
Adding Fuel To A Hot Sector
The awards land in a market where private nuclear developers are already stacking commercial deals with hyperscalers and utilities. Earlier this month Antares Nuclear raised $470M to accelerate a military microreactor targeting the same 2028 timeline, and Valar Atomics is pairing a 30 MW plant with NVIDIA for a Utah AI data center. Federal willingness to underwrite grid-independent power at bases plus AI factories is turning microreactors from a pilot category into a real supply chain.
Reporting based on coverage from The Defence Blog, Breaking Defense, Defense One and Army official releases.