Thorizon of the Netherlands has signed a cooperation agreement with France's EDF R&D to advance the Thorizon One molten salt reactor design. Meanwhile, Blue Capsule has signed a partnership agreement with the French Alternative Energies & Atomic Energy Commission, from which it was spun off, for the development of its small modular reactor.

The UK's National Nuclear Laboratory has appointed engineering group Jacobs to help in the development of a high temperature gas reactor design that it is developing in partnership with the Japan Atomic Energy Agency.

X-energy and Cavendish Nuclear have commissioned Teesside University to undertake a study of the potential regional benefits and economic impacts of a proposed power plant in Hartlepool, UK, based on X-energy's Xe-100 high temperature gas-cooled reactor.

Private Japanese fusion technology company Kyoto Fusioneering and Canadian Nuclear Laboratories have formed a joint venture - named Fusion Fuel Cycles Inc - aimed at developing and deploying deuterium-tritium fusion fuel cycle technologies.

The UK Atomic Energy Authority has appointed Canadian engineering firm AtkinsRéalis to deliver the detailed design of an isotope separation system to strengthen research into sustainable fusion delivery.

Mitsubishi Heavy Industries has been awarded a contract to supply a further 12 outer vertical targets for the divertor to be used in the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor. The Japanese company has already delivered six of the components.

Hydrogen can be produced for less than EUR3.50 (USD3.80) per kilogram using a combination of solid oxide electrolysis cells and small modular reactors, significantly cheaper than alternative methods, a new study led by Dutch nuclear energy development company ULC-Energy BV has concluded.

The Swedish Energy Agency has granted SEK50 million (USD4.7 million) for a project led by researchers at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg for the development of an entire Generation IV nuclear power system. The project also aims to rebuild national expertise in nuclear technology science.

Atomic Canyon has announced a new project with Oak Ridge National Laboratory to use the Frontiers supercomputer to build a safe, efficient, open-source artificial intelligence model for the nuclear sector - and the Aurora supercomputer at the Argonne National Laboratory is confirmed to have surpassed the exascale threshold.

The International Atomic Energy Agency's NUTEC Plastics initiative uses nuclear and isotopic techniques to produce data on marine microplastics distribution and fight plastic pollution - it is one of the areas covered by Chile's new cooperation agreements with the agency.

High temperature superconducting tapes for use in the UK's prototype fusion power plant will be tested in a Czech research reactor following the signing of an agreement between the UK Atomic Energy Authority and Research Centre Řež.

The memorandum of understanding will see the UK's National Physical Laboratory joining CERN's neutron time-of-flight facility with studies aiming to benefit advanced nuclear reactors, fuel cycles and nuclear fusion.