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US-India Nuclear Cooperation: Private Sector, Fusion, and the SHANTI Act

Monday, May 18, 2026
5 min read
US-India Nuclear Cooperation: Private Sector, Fusion, and the SHANTI Act

This week, a whole delegation from the American nuclear industry is heading over to India. They’re looking to dig into the country’s newly opened private civil nuclear sector.

What they really want to talk about is project development. Strengthening those supply chains. Building up some kind of long-term commercial partnership. All of this is framed under India’s new SHANTI Act . That act replaced the older Atomic Energy Act, and it eased those liability rules for nuclear suppliers. That change, that’s key. Global companies, they felt stuck. The old rules, the CNLD Act, they had way tougher liability provisions. It just felt like a massive roadblock when trying to explore the Indian market.

India itself has some massive targets floating around. It’s a relentless push.

And that’s where the US interest comes in. It’s not just about power generation. They’re also looking at cooperation in fusion technologies. Think about the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, that thing being developed over in Cadarache in France. That’s one thread. But there’s another one, the SMRs . Small modular reactors. Everyone is talking about SMRs as the future. Easier to deploy, right? Especially if you can repurpose old coal plant sites.

The US is pushing hard to speed up SMR deployment. And they want to look at recycling and reprocessing spent fuel. It’s a whole different angle on the energy puzzle. The US, honestly, hasn't done that reprocessing or recycling since 1970. That’s a huge gap.

Shaswat Kumar, a Fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C., he put it plainly. He said that India’s ambition—scaling up to 100 GW by 2047, combined with letting private players in, that presents a major commercial opportunity for US firms. That’s the hook, isn't it? The potential profit, the market access.

But there are hurdles. Kumar pointed out that realizing this potential hinges on parallel action. Faster export approvals from the US, sure, but also progress on reprocessing infrastructure in India. And addressing those end-use verification concerns. That’s where the friction lies.

Think about the existing setup, too. That was the initial handshake.

Now, you look at the players on the ground in India. The private sector is definitely showing interest. Companies like Tata Consulting Engineers, the Adani Group, Larsen & Toubro—they’re all showing keen interest in this civil nuclear space. They see the money, they see the opportunity.

Meanwhile, the public sector is also moving. NTPC, the National Thermal Power Corporation, they’ve already made some moves.

It’s messy. It’s not a clean, straight line. You have the big policy shifts, the technical exploration of fusion, the regulatory battles over liability, and then you have the actual corporate maneuvering happening in Mumbai and Delhi.

The whole picture is moving, but it’s not perfectly ordered. There’s this underlying tension. The ambition on both sides is enormous. But the path there is riddled with details. Export approvals, infrastructure building, verification issues. It’s all tangled up.

The focus shifts, sometimes. From the big global physics—fusion—to the very practical, very industrial stuff—how do we handle the fuel, how do we build the plants, and who actually gets to operate them. That’s the real negotiation happening behind the scenes.

The speed of things feels uneven. The US wants momentum. India wants capacity and control. And the private sector wants certainty. Trying to bridge that divide while the technical and commercial gears are grinding.

Written by Gree News Team — Senior Editorial Board

Gree News Team covers international news and global affairs at Gree News. Our collective of senior editors is dedicated to providing independent, accurate, and responsible journalism for a global audience.

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