Competitor Rolls-Royce SMR's UK-Czech Deal Highlights NuScale's Commercialization Lag

What happened

Amentum and Rolls-Royce SMR have partnered to deploy the first small modular reactors in the UK and Czech Republic, signaling active progress in the SMR industry. In stark contrast, NuScale Power remains pre-commercial with no binding reactor delivery contracts, as detailed in its recent SEC filings, which show heavy reliance on equity funding and a $600.7 million net loss over nine months in 2025. NuScale's revenue is overwhelmingly concentrated in FEED work from Fluor, with key projects like RoPower in Romania and ENTRA1/TVA in the US still at the non-binding MOU stage, delaying tangible backlog. The company's ~$5.7 billion market cap prices in multi-gigawatt deployment despite these fundamental gaps, exacerbated by Fluor's planned exit and prior dilution. This competitor's advancement underscores NuScale's slow path to commercialization, increasing pressure to secure binding agreements to justify its valuation.

Implication

The Rolls-Royce SMR partnership validates SMR market momentum but highlights NuScale's lag in converting regulatory leads into firm contracts, risking investor confidence. NuScale's dependence on Fluor for 96% of recent revenue and its negative cash flow of $255.9 million over nine months in 2025 make it vulnerable to project delays and funding squeezes. Investors should monitor near-term catalysts like RoPower's preliminary decision and ENTRA1 progress, but remain skeptical given the high valuation and lack of binding orders. Competitor advancements increase the urgency for NuScale to secure binding NPM supply or service contracts by mid-2026, as outlined in the DeepValue report, or face further downside. Ultimately, this underscores the sell thesis that NuScale's stock is overvalued, with downside risks outweighing potential upside from long-dated AI and nuclear themes.

Thesis delta

The competitor's deployment announcement does not alter NuScale's core challenges of no binding contracts and high cash burn, but it sharpens the focus on competitive pressures in the SMR space. This reinforces the sell rating by highlighting NuScale's commercialization gap, though it also validates the long-term market opportunity—if NuScale can accelerate project conversions to avoid being sidelined.