South Korea plans to shorten nuclear plant construction cycles to meet rapidly rising power demand from AI, data centers and planned semiconductor cluster investment, the presidential office said. Construction currently takes about 9–10 years and officials will study ways to cut that timeline; measures will be included in the upcoming long-term power supply-demand plan. Nuclear already supplies roughly one-third of South Korea's electricity, but regulatory hurdles and complex build requirements

South Korea plans to shorten nuclear plant construction cycles to meet rapidly rising power demand from AI, data centers and planned semiconductor cluster investment, the presidential office said. Construction currently takes about 9–10 years and officials will study ways to cut that timeline; measures will be included in the upcoming long-term power supply-demand plan. Nuclear already supplies roughly one-third of South Korea's electricity, but regulatory hurdles and complex build requirements are bottlenecks; small modular reactors (SMRs) are intended to speed deployment but remain early-stage and not yet widely commercial.