HALEU Enrichment Fuel
High-assay low-enriched uranium — the fuel chokepoint gating advanced reactors
Most advanced reactors and SMRs (Oklo, TerraPower, X-energy, Kairos) require HALEU — uranium enriched to 5-20% U-235 — which today has essentially no large-scale commercial Western supply; Russia's Rosatom has been the dominant source. The US is funding domestic HALEU enrichment (Centrus, Urenco) under DOE programs, but the shortfall is a genuine chokepoint that could delay the entire advanced-reactor wave central to hyperscaler nuclear plans.
Enrichment level
5-20% U-235 (vs ~5% for conventional)
Dominant supplier
Russia (Rosatom) historically
US buildout
Centrus (Piketon OH), Urenco, DOE-funded
Impact
Shortfall can delay most US SMR/advanced reactors
How it fits the stack
HALEU Enrichment Fuel with what it depends on (above) and what it feeds (below). The figure renders as a crawlable diagram and upgrades to an interactive 3D graph as it scrolls into view.
HALEU Enrichment Fuel in the AI stack. HALEU Enrichment Fuel with its immediate upstream dependencies (top) and downstream dependents (bottom) in the AI value chain. Hover a node in 3D, or read the full relationships below.
Graph data (text) — 6 entities, 5 relationships
- Kairos Power —depends on→ HALEU Enrichment Fuel
- Nuclear Power (incl. SMRs) —depends on→ HALEU Enrichment Fuel
- Oklo —depends on→ HALEU Enrichment Fuel
- TerraPower —depends on→ HALEU Enrichment Fuel
- X-energy —depends on→ HALEU Enrichment Fuel
Feeds ↓ · 5