China Tests a Truck-Mounted Nuclear Reactor That Could Power an AI Data Center

China is testing a prototype truck-mounted nuclear reactor capable of 10 megawatts, enough to power a medium-sized AI data center, according to Wu Yican, chief scientific adviser at the Institute of Nuclear Energy Safety Technology and a member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Wu, speaking to Science and Technology Daily, described the unit as the world's first 10-megawatt vehicle-mounted nuclear power system. The team is now actively looking for first deployments.

The Details

Output: 10 MW, sufficient for a medium-sized AI data center

Form factor: vehicle-mounted, transportable on a truck chassis

Operational lifespan: "decades without recharging," per Wu

Status: prototype, in testing, multi-year development behind it

Targeted use cases: remote regions and islands, emergency backup power in special environments, ship propulsion, space-system power, and AI computing or data centers

Why this is more than a science press release

The framing matters. Wu calls the system a "nuclear power bank" and pitches it explicitly as a solution to "battery anxiety" in different applications. That language is built for industrial customers, not for scientific peers.

It also lands at exactly the moment when the AI infrastructure conversation is dominated by the energy bottleneck. US hyperscalers are talking about gigawatt-scale data center campuses and are paying premium prices for power purchase agreements, with grid interconnection becoming the binding constraint. Microsoft and Amazon have written multi-billion-dollar checks for nuclear PPAs (Three Mile Island restart, X-Energy SMRs).

China's bet here is structurally different. Instead of waiting for utility-scale SMR builds, the pitch is a self-contained 10 MW box that can be parked next to a data center and run for decades. If the prototype scales, the unit cost and time-to-power look very different from a multi-year SMR construction project.

What is unproven

Important caveats: the announcement is a single source (SCMP, citing Science and Technology Daily) and reflects a research-stage prototype, not a commercial product. There is no third-party validation of safety claims yet, and no public regulatory framework for siting truck-mounted reactors at commercial data centers in any major jurisdiction.

What it does signal: China is willing to position nuclear-on-wheels as a serious answer to the AI energy problem, while the US debate is still anchored on grid expansion and stationary SMRs. If even one of the targeted use cases (islands, ships, remote AI compute) lands a paying customer, the sector reframes.

Sources: SCMP, Science and Technology Daily