Southeast Asia Goes Nuclear: Five Countries, Zero Watts

Five Southeast Asian countries — Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines — are racing to build nuclear power plants as the Iran war exposes the region's total dependence on imported oil and gas. The region has never produced a single watt of nuclear electricity. Vietnam signed a deal with Russia's Rosatom on March 23 for two reactors totaling 2,400 MW. Indonesia targets its first reactor by 2034. The Philippines is revisiting a plant it built in the 1970s and never turned on.

Here's the thing about Southeast Asia and nuclear power: it's been here before, and it lost its nerve.

In 1976, the Philippines broke ground on the Bataan Nuclear Power Plant. The trigger was the 1973 oil crisis — the same kind of supply shock that's playing out right now through the Hormuz blockade's impact on clean energy. Westinghouse built the 621 MW reactor. It was finished in 1984. It was never turned on. First came allegations of corruption. Then Marcos fell. Then Chernobyl. The Philippines spent decades paying off a $2.3 billion debt for a power plant that produced exactly nothing.

Fifty years later, the same region faces the same crisis. And five countries are making the same bet — that this time, it'll be different.

Vietnam goes to Moscow

On March 23, Vietnam's Prime Minister Pham Minh Chinh flew to Moscow and signed an intergovernmental agreement with Russia for the Ninh Thuan 1 nuclear power plant. Two reactors. 2,400 megawatts. Built by Rosatom — the same Russian state corporation that's building reactors across the developing world while Western nuclear industries struggle to deliver on time.

Vietnam actually cancelled this exact project in 2016. Cost concerns. Falling oil prices. No urgency. The Hormuz blockade changed the math overnight. Vietnam's revised atomic energy law took effect in January. The project is back.

For English-language media, this was a short business brief. For Vietnamese domestic outlets, it's a "nationally strategic project." The framing gap matters: Western coverage treats these as aspirational announcements. Southeast Asian coverage treats them as survival decisions.

The data centre paradox

What makes this nuclear push different from the 1970s version is AI.

Southeast Asia hosts more than 2,000 data centres across Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and the Philippines, according to the think tank Ember. Microsoft, Google, and Nvidia are all investing in Malaysia's bid to become the region's AI computing hub. The IEA projects Southeast Asia will account for a quarter of global energy demand growth by 2035.

You can't run that on imported LNG when the strait it ships through is closed.

Indonesia has added nuclear to its national electricity plan — 500 MW of small modular reactors split between Sumatra and Kalimantan by 2034. Canada and Russia have both submitted formal cooperation proposals. Thailand targets 600 MW by 2037 using two 300 MW SMRs. The Philippines approved an investor roadmap in February and launched a new atomic energy regulatory authority.

Malaysia, which never quite committed to nuclear, is now debating it publicly. Its 13th Malaysia Plan (2026-2030) officially includes nuclear as a clean energy source. A former MP called for a cost-benefit analysis just yesterday. The options on the table include SMRs, floating units, and a full-scale 2,000 MW plant.

$208 billion question

Wood Mackenzie puts the price tag at $208 billion to develop 25 GW of nuclear capacity across Southeast Asia by 2050. The World Nuclear Association says the region will account for nearly a quarter of the 157 GW expected from "newcomer nuclear nations" by mid-century.

Those are staggering numbers for countries where the average electricity tariff is a fraction of Europe's or Japan's. The economics only work if three things happen: oil stays expensive, SMR costs come down, and construction timelines don't balloon like they have for every major Western nuclear project in the past two decades.

Look at the track record. Japan bet $40 billion on US SMRs that don't exist yet. Europe's SMR strategy promises 53 GW by 2050, but zero have been licensed on the continent. The only countries actually building and operating SMRs right now are Russia and China. That's the geopolitical knot: the nations leading SMR deployment are the ones Western allies are trying to decouple from.

Russia builds the reactors. The West builds the rules.

Vietnam's deal with Rosatom tells the story. Russia has delivered nuclear plants on time in Bangladesh, Egypt, Turkey, and India. Rosatom's VVER-1200 design is proven and financeable. Russia offers construction loans, fuel supply, and operator training as a package.

The US and its allies offer regulations, partnerships, and SMR designs that haven't been commercially deployed anywhere. The Philippines' new atomic energy regulatory authority is modelled on US Nuclear Regulatory Commission standards. Indonesia is talking to Canada about CANDU-derived reactors. But none of these Western-backed options have a functioning reference plant.

So the region is splitting. Vietnam goes with the country that can actually build reactors. Others are waiting for technology that might arrive in the 2030s. Meanwhile, the Philippines has 45 days of fuel left and the Hormuz Strait remains closed.

What 800 million people aren't being told

The perception gap here is between urgency and aspiration. In English-language coverage, Southeast Asia's nuclear push reads like a trend piece — "countries consider new energy options." In domestic media across the region, it reads like crisis management.

Alvie Asuncion-Astronomo of the Philippine Nuclear Research Institute said the Hormuz crisis has "raised the motivation for countries to speed up their nuclear efforts." She also acknowledged that "we are not anticipating that nuclear electricity will be cheap at the onset."

That honesty is rare. Most of the announcements from the region promise clean, cheap, reliable power without acknowledging that no newcomer nuclear nation has ever built reactors on time or on budget. France took 15 years to bring Flamanville online. The US spent $17 billion over cost at Vogtle in Georgia. These aren't exceptions — they're the norm.

Eight hundred million people live in ASEAN's five nuclear-aspiring countries. They're being told nuclear will secure their energy future. What they're not being told is that the construction timeline stretches past 2035, the technology they want doesn't exist commercially, and the one country that can deliver quickly is the same one currently under Western sanctions for its own war.

The 1973 parallel nobody wants to mention

In 1973, the oil crisis triggered nuclear ambitions across the developing world. Most never materialised. The Philippines built Bataan and never turned it on. Thailand studied nuclear in the 1970s, again in the 2000s, and shelved it both times. Indonesia has been "considering nuclear" since 1954.

The Hormuz crisis has created the same urgency. The question is whether it'll produce the same outcome: expensive commitments made under pressure, followed by decades of regret when oil prices eventually stabilise.

The difference this time might be AI. Data centres don't care about geopolitics — they need electrons, reliably, in massive quantities. If Microsoft and Google are building in Malaysia, Malaysia needs baseload power that doesn't depend on a strait controlled by a country at war. That's a structural driver the 1970s didn't have.

But structural drivers don't build reactors. Engineers do. And the engineers who know how to build SMRs work in Moscow and Beijing, not Washington.

Southeast Asia has never produced a single nuclear watt. It's spent fifty years and $2.3 billion proving how hard it is to change that. Five countries are trying again. The crisis is real. The money is enormous. The track record is terrible. And the clock — with oil above $112 a barrel and Hormuz still closed — is ticking.