Construction sites open in France, Poland, and Romania, a potential market of 46 billion euros for the Italian supply chain, new certifications, and qualification requirements. This is why manufacturing SMEs should start interpreting this transformation now.
First concrete pour for Unit 5 on February 5, 2026. Photo: Paks II Ltd. / Kövi Gergely Péter, paks2.hu
The return of nuclear power in Europe can become a concrete competitive variable for manufacturing SMEs, industrial managers, and companies active in components, plant engineering, and technical supplies. New construction sites, investments, and energy strategies are already beginning to translate into industrial demand, qualification requirements, quality standards, specialized skills, and supply chain relationships that must be built in time.
Indeed, some transformations announce themselves slowly and then suddenly accelerate. Nuclear power, which for years remained on the fringes of the national energy debate—marked by two referendums and deep-seated cultural distrust—has returned to the center of European strategies with a speed that many observers had not predicted. This time, the context is different: greater awareness of the technology and its relevance to the country’s competitiveness, an energy policy commensurate with climate urgencies, industrial policies in motion, and construction sites already open across Europe.
Active reactors (EU)
Potential market
CIM, the national Competence Center for digital and sustainable transformation of the manufacturing industry, is working on a unique opportunity in Italy for companies that want to understand and prepare for this transformation.
A choice that may raise a legitimate question: why does an organization dealing with Industry 4.0, advanced manufacturing, and technological and sustainable transition decide to open a discussion on nuclear power?
The answer lies in the very essence of CIM’s mission and in what is happening internationally. Nuclear power has returned to the center of the energy, industrial, and technological debate. For this reason, CIM intends to offer companies a space for knowledge, orientation, and discussion, useful for better understanding an evolving scenario and evaluating its implications, opportunities, and required skills.
The details of this initiative will be presented during the webinar Nuclear power is coming back: what it really means for Italian industry which will be held on Tuesday, June 30 at 11:30 AM.
CIM and technology transfer: supporting companies in the transitions that matter
CIM is recognized by the Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy (MIMIT) as one of the national Competence Centers established under the National Industry 4.0 Plan. Its mandate is precise: to facilitate technology transfer to small and medium-sized Italian manufacturing enterprises, helping them adopt advanced technologies, understand market transformations, and build adequate skills to compete.
This role is concretely expressed through training, applied research, technological scouting, and strategic orientation. CIM produces skills, methodology, and awareness by working with local manufacturing companies, particularly those SMEs that often lack the internal resources to independently monitor the technological and market transformations affecting them.
The decision to follow nuclear power stems exactly from this mandate. The technological transformations that CIM monitors and transfers to companies are not only digital: they include all those that can have a significant impact on Italian manufacturing supply chains. And the return of nuclear power in Europe is, based on the data, one of these transformations. CIM observes technological transformations at the point where they meet the real needs of industry. It is in this space that nuclear power is now positioned, having returned to the center of the international debate for energy reasons, decarbonization goals, and concrete industrial opportunities. Therefore, nuclear power is effectively one of the possible options for business diversification and differentiation for many manufacturing companies, including small and medium-sized ones. And never more than in this moment of profound transformation of manufacturing and the automotive supply chain can this option prove crucial.
What is really happening in Europe
The numbers help to understand the scope of the change. According to data from the International Energy Agency, nuclear power has entered a phase that the agency itself defines as a “renaissance”: in 2023, global nuclear capacity reached a historic high, with over 60 GW of new plants under construction worldwide.
In Europe, the movement is even more defined. France has announced the construction of six new EPR2 reactors, with an option for six more, as part of an industrial plan worth tens of billions that will bring the country back to being the continent’s leading nuclear producer. Poland, which is building nuclear power for the first time, signed the agreement with Westinghouse in 2023 for the construction of an AP1000 plant in Lubiatowo-Kopalino: this is one of the most significant nuclear projects currently under development in Europe. Romania is completing units 3 and 4 of the Cernavodă plant with CANDU technology.
At the institutional level, the European Commission has launched the European Industrial Alliance on Small Modular Reactors, an initiative that brings together industry, research, and governments to accelerate the development of SMRs at the European level. Italy participates with the second highest number of member companies after France: a sign that the Italian industrial supply chain has already sensed where the market is moving.
In Italy, the institutional framework is moving in the same direction. In the PNIEC 2024, transmitted to the European Commission by the Ministry of Environment and Energy Security, long-term scenario hypotheses were considered in which fission nuclear power, and in the long term also fusion, could contribute by 2050 to approximately 11% of the total electricity required, with a possible projection up to 22%. In 2025, moreover, the Council of Ministers approved a delegation bill on sustainable nuclear energy, with the objective of defining the regulatory framework for new nuclear technologies.
Real benefits, real criticalities: CIM’s reading on nuclear power
The debate on nuclear power in Italy has for decades been characterized by polarization between opposing positions, often more ideological than technical. CIM has deliberately chosen not to participate in that debate in the traditional way. Our approach is that of a Competence Center: verifiable data, authoritative sources, objective analysis of real strengths and criticalities at both global and local levels.
Regarding strengths, the data is clear. The IPCC Report on Climate Mitigation places nuclear power among the lowest carbon-intensive sources available on an industrial scale, with life-cycle emissions between 4 and 12 gCO₂eq/kWh: values comparable to wind and solar, and two orders of magnitude lower than natural gas. The IEA also emphasizes the value of dispatchability: unlike intermittent renewables, nuclear power guarantees stable and predictable production, complementary to the variability of solar and wind.
Regarding criticalities, technical literature is equally explicit. Construction costs for large-scale plants have historically been difficult to estimate accurately: the EPR reactor in Flamanville, France, has accumulated significant delays and cost overruns. Construction times remain long. Radioactive waste management requires long-term solutions that no country has yet fully resolved, although Finland has launched the world’s first permanent deep geological repository at Onkalo.
Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) and Advanced Modular Reactors (AMRs) are changing some of these parameters. The TEHA-Edison-Ansaldo Nucleare 2024 Strategic Report estimates the commercial availability of Gen3+ SMRs from 2030 and fourth-generation AMRs by 2040. Modularity reduces financial costs, accelerates construction times, and allows greater flexibility in site selection. The economic advantage is fully manifested with production seriality: the third and fourth units of the same design cost significantly less than the first.
What it means for the Italian manufacturing supply chain
The point that CIM considers most relevant for Italian companies is this: nuclear power does not only concern large energy operators and reactor builders. It concerns a much broader industrial system, made up of components, plant engineering, civil construction, certified fasteners, forming and assembly technologies, valves, seals, high-quality supplies. Preparing to manufacture subsystems with a systems engineering approach and as experts in integrated systems can represent the space in which to position innovative Made-in-Italy companies and SMEs.
The TEHA-Edison-Ansaldo Nucleare 2024 Report estimates a potential market for the Italian industrial supply chain of 46 billion euros by 2050, with an activatable added value of 14.8 billion and up to 117,000 new jobs. Italy already boasts over 70 companies active in nuclear power: companies such as Simic and Facco already operate in European nuclear construction sites, having completed over the years the qualification process necessary to access the supply chain.
New Jobs
Current Supply Chain
The Italian supply chain has real industrial foundations in civil construction and infrastructure, mechanical and process plant engineering, pressure components, certified fasteners, assembly technologies (welding first and foremost), high-efficiency and precision forming technologies such as additive manufacturing, industrial supplies coming from oil & gas, aerospace, or automotive that can be converted to nuclear. The gaps mainly concern strictly nuclear components, currently controlled by specialized international players. But the portion of the supply chain potentially eligible for those starting from metalworking, plant engineering, automotive, or aerospace is significant.
The condition for accessing it is one: knowing the requirements, investing in qualification, doing so with the right timing. Access to the nuclear supply chain requires specific certifications (ISO 19443, ASME III, IAEA standards), deep understanding of nuclear safety culture as an organizational approach, and relationships built with international nuclear operators and contractors before the market becomes competitive.
A new opportunity to prepare
It is within this change, still partly to be deciphered, that CIM has identified a precise market gap: many manufacturing companies sense that nuclear power could open significant industrial spaces, but do not yet have a structured reading to understand whether to enter the supply chain, when, with what preparation, and on which market segments.
For this reason, CIM has in store a new initiative, designed to support managers, SMEs, business developers, engineers, quality managers, and supply chain companies in understanding the requirements, skills, and industrial trajectories related to new nuclear power.
This is a unique opportunity in Italy and will be presented during the webinar “Nuclear power is coming back: what it really means for Italian industry” scheduled for June 30.
The webinar will address the return of nuclear power from an industrial perspective, shifting the focus of the discussion from public debate to concrete implications for companies, skills, and supply chains. With journalistic moderation and a business-oriented approach, the meeting will offer an articulated reading of the energy scenario, technological evolution, the role of research, and the new requirements that companies will be called upon to know in order to evaluate their positioning in the supply chain.
Keep following CIM: soon all the details to register for the free webinar.
