Indonesia, United States, and Japan Host Conference on Nuclear Small Modular Reactor Deployment

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Market Watch

Indonesia SMR Conference: Indonesia, the U.S., and Japan hosted a three-day summit to support Indonesia's SMR deployment roadmap, addressing regulatory frameworks, workforce capability, and supply chain integration as distinct workstreams

Indonesia SMR Conference: Indonesia, the U.S., and Japan hosted a three-day summit to support Indonesia's SMR deployment roadmap, addressing regulatory frameworks, workforce capability, and supply chain integration as distinct workstreams

Aleksandr Danilov

Technical Strategy & Project Integration

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What the Source Reports

  • Indonesia's National Energy Council (Dewan Energi Nasional, DEN), together with the governments of the United States and Japan, hosted a three-day conference on nuclear SMR development from 3–5 March 2026 in Jakarta.

  • The conference was implemented under the U.S. State Department's Foundational Infrastructure for Responsible Use of Small Modular Reactor Technology (FIRST) programme a civil nuclear energy security assistance programme led by the United States, with Japan as a contributing partner.

Indonesia was the first country in the world to join FIRST as a beneficiary, in 2019, and the source describes it as playing “a leading role as a regional champion for potential SMR deployment.”

  • The conference brought together government officials, industry leaders and technical experts from all three countries to discuss key considerations for potential SMR deployment in Indonesia.

  • Sessions covered SMR-focused nuclear regulatory frameworks, workforce development, licensing processes, site requirements for nuclear power plants, and stakeholder engagement.

  • U.S. and Japanese experts presented on SMR technology, nuclear supply chains, and local industrial participation, to inform Indonesia's future nuclear energy projects.

  • The programme included interactive discussions and breakout sessions addressing regulatory challenges, technical considerations and workforce planning.

Source: U.S. Embassy & Consulates in Indonesia

Expert Commentary

”What stands out to me in this format is that regulatory, workforce and supply-chain readiness were treated as three separate workstreams, run over three days with different specialists leading each one. That is realistic, no single expert covers all three well, but it also means someone on the Owner's side has to own the job of integrating them back into one coherent programme architecture once the workshop ends.

I have run technical integration for programmes where exactly this gap showed up eighteen months later: a licensing timeline built without reference to the workforce plan, or a supply-chain localisation target that assumed a regulatory pathway that hadn't actually been confirmed yet. None of that is a failure of any individual workstream, it's a failure of integration, and integration is a named role, not something that happens automatically once good people are in the room.

For a programme at Indonesia's stage, the immediate task after a workshop like this is not more capacity-building. It's appointing whoever is going to own the single, cross-disciplinary requirements picture regulatory, workforce and supply chain in one register before vendor engagement accelerates and the three threads start pulling in different directions.” - Aleksandr Danilov, Technical Strategy & Project Integration.

What the Source Reports

  • Indonesia's National Energy Council (Dewan Energi Nasional, DEN), together with the governments of the United States and Japan, hosted a three-day conference on nuclear SMR development from 3–5 March 2026 in Jakarta.

  • The conference was implemented under the U.S. State Department's Foundational Infrastructure for Responsible Use of Small Modular Reactor Technology (FIRST) programme a civil nuclear energy security assistance programme led by the United States, with Japan as a contributing partner.

Indonesia was the first country in the world to join FIRST as a beneficiary, in 2019, and the source describes it as playing “a leading role as a regional champion for potential SMR deployment.”

  • The conference brought together government officials, industry leaders and technical experts from all three countries to discuss key considerations for potential SMR deployment in Indonesia.

  • Sessions covered SMR-focused nuclear regulatory frameworks, workforce development, licensing processes, site requirements for nuclear power plants, and stakeholder engagement.

  • U.S. and Japanese experts presented on SMR technology, nuclear supply chains, and local industrial participation, to inform Indonesia's future nuclear energy projects.

  • The programme included interactive discussions and breakout sessions addressing regulatory challenges, technical considerations and workforce planning.

Source: U.S. Embassy & Consulates in Indonesia

Expert Commentary

”What stands out to me in this format is that regulatory, workforce and supply-chain readiness were treated as three separate workstreams, run over three days with different specialists leading each one. That is realistic, no single expert covers all three well, but it also means someone on the Owner's side has to own the job of integrating them back into one coherent programme architecture once the workshop ends.

I have run technical integration for programmes where exactly this gap showed up eighteen months later: a licensing timeline built without reference to the workforce plan, or a supply-chain localisation target that assumed a regulatory pathway that hadn't actually been confirmed yet. None of that is a failure of any individual workstream, it's a failure of integration, and integration is a named role, not something that happens automatically once good people are in the room.

For a programme at Indonesia's stage, the immediate task after a workshop like this is not more capacity-building. It's appointing whoever is going to own the single, cross-disciplinary requirements picture regulatory, workforce and supply chain in one register before vendor engagement accelerates and the three threads start pulling in different directions.” - Aleksandr Danilov, Technical Strategy & Project Integration.