Imagine if a steel mill in Jharkhand, a data centre in Bengaluru, and an industrial park in Gujarat were all powered by backyard nuclear plants of their own?

It’s an outrageous scenario no more. Holtec International is at work to make it a reality. In short order, too.

The American nuclear equipment supplier specialises in 300 MW small modular reactors. SMRs, unlike traditional reactors, don’t need to be installed near large water bodies, making them suitable for electrifying inland industrial clusters, say, or replacing decommissioned coal plants. That their modular design allows for factory construction and onsite assembly—thereby shrinking timelines for installation and operation—only adds to the appeal.

Holtec plans to install 200 SMRs across India. And it just received a shot in the arm with the passageWorld nuclear newsIndia's atomic energy bill tabled in parliament, on 15 December, of the Sustainable Harnessing and Advancement of Nuclear Energy for Transforming India Bill.

The Shanti bill opens up the nuclear sector—controlled and operated exclusively by the government so far—to private players such as Tata Power and Reliance Industries. And Holtec.

Bringing in private nuclear players marks a critical shift in the country’s energy policy. And likely a necessary one.

India has a target of generating 100 GW of nuclear energy by 2047, but is far off the pace. It produces only about 8.8 GW from 24 reactors across seven nuclear stations currently, a fraction of what’s required to achieve carbon neutrality by 2070.

“Government agencies alone will never be able to reach this target,” says a former engineer at the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL), the country’s sole operator of nuclear plants.

Merely letting private players in the door won’t do the trick, though. Getting anywhere near the 2047 target will require having a trained private workforce, predictable project timelines, standardised reactor designs, domestic manufacturing, and a commercial model.

Holtec intends to do just that by moving first: set technical standards, establish resilient supply chains, build a commercially viable network of SMRs, and train a workforce to match.

“The engineering talent is there,” founder and CEO Kris Singh says. “So why is India still at eight gigawatts? It tells you something structurally isn’t working.”

For Holtec, the privatisation of India’s nuclear sector isn’t just a policy shift; it is an opportunity to fundamentally change how nuclear plants are built and run in the country.