Deputy Prime Minister and Science Minister Bae Kyung-hoon, who chairs the meeting in Songdo, Incheon, also pledged to develop small modular reactors (SMRs) safely and to shore up public trust through transparency.
About 800 delegates from 60 countries, eight international bodies and about 85 companies are attending.
"Based on the SMR special act and the seven SEED projects, we will pool public and private capabilities to safely develop and demonstrate SMRs," Bae said in his keynote speech.
"We will connect Korea's manufacturing and construction capabilities with global nuclear demand."
The SEED projects, short for Strategic Emerging Engines for Disruptive innovation, were unveiled in August and name SMRs among seven growth engines alongside fusion, renewables, quantum, aerospace, advanced bio and supply chains.
Seoul aims to commercialize light-water SMRs by 2035, backed by a special SMR act that took effect Sept. 11.
IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi, who scrapped his trip days before the opening, addressed delegates by video and cited a UN Security Council briefing. The council was scheduled to hear from him on Iran on Tuesday in New York, after the IAEA board referred Tehran over safeguards breaches in September.
Grossi said global nuclear capacity could top 640 gigawatts by 2050 under the agency's conservative scenario and exceed 1,000 gigawatts in its optimistic case, up from about 377 gigawatts at the end of 2025.
He added that actual growth would hinge on how projects are delivered on the ground.
The conference, held roughly every four years since Paris in 2005, last met in Washington in 2022.
The day before it opened, the science ministry and the U.S. Embassy in Seoul hosted an industry dialogue attended by companies including Korea Hydro & Nuclear Power, Doosan Enerbility and TerraPower.
AJP Takeaways
- South Korea opened the sixth IAEA International Ministerial Conference on Nuclear Power in Incheon on Oct. 27, 2026. It is the first time the country has hosted the event, and Seoul used it to lay out plans to become a global nuclear production hub.
- The IAEA's September 2026 projections put global nuclear capacity at 641 to 1,045 gigawatts by 2050, up from 377.1 gigawatts at the end of 2025.
- South Korea's SMR special act took effect on Sept. 11, 2026, and the government aims to commercialize light-water SMRs by 2035.
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