The Army is moving aggressively to harden the nation’s military infrastructure, selecting five American companies to develop nuclear microreactors at major installations across the country.

The agreements could be worth a combined $2.2 billion and represent a serious investment in reliable power for combat readiness.

The effort is being carried out with the War Department’s Defense Innovation Unit under the Army’s Janus program.

Janus is designed to reduce military dependence on civilian electrical grids that could be disrupted by cyberattacks, sabotage, natural disasters or enemy action.

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Antares Nuclear will develop microreactor capabilities at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, while BWXT Advanced Technologies will work at Fort Campbell, Kentucky.

General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems was selected for Fort Hood, Texas, Radiant Industries for Fort Benning, Georgia, and Westinghouse Government Services for Fort Drum, New York.

Army officials expect the broader initiative eventually to field more than 20 microreactors across Department of War installations.

The current goal follows a 2025 executive order calling for accelerated military adoption of nuclear power and an operational base reactor by September 30, 2028.

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“Awarding these contracts accelerates our ability to deliver safe, reliable baseload power directly to our installations,” Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll said.

“We are building the energy resilience necessary to project combat power globally, without relying on potentially vulnerable external grids.”

The reactors will remain owned and operated by the contractors, placing responsibility for performance on the companies rather than leaving taxpayers holding another open ended government science project.

Vendors will receive payment only after meeting established technical milestones.

Officials said the selected installations will remain connected to commercial electrical systems because the reactors are not intended to supply every watt consumed by each base. Instead, they will provide dependable baseload power and another layer of protection when civilian infrastructure becomes unreliable.

Janus builds on “Project Pele,” a War Department initiative announced in 2022 to develop a portable nuclear reactor weighing roughly 40 tons.

That system was designed to produce between one and five megawatts of electricity.

Jeff Waksman, principal deputy assistant secretary of the Army for Installations, Energy and Environment, said the planned reactors will not use highly enriched or weapons grade uranium.

He explained that battlefield realities and threats to the homeland have forced military planners to rethink their reliance on conventional energy.

“Unlike in prior conflicts, we now know that our domestic electric grid is potentially at risk in a conflict,” Waksman said.

“We also know that we will not necessarily be able to move fossil fuels easily wherever we need them to go. Right now, all critical infrastructure that the Army has is backed up by some form of liquid fossil fuel, primarily diesel.”

That dependence becomes even more dangerous outside the continental United States, especially across the vast Pacific.

“We’re often dependent. In a lot of our Pacific islands, we’re dependent on foreign-shipped fuel from foreign-flagged vessels, and that doesn’t give us a lot of comfort if there were to be a future conflict,” Waksman continued.

Waksman said nuclear waste will not be stored at Army bases over the long term.

The program arrives as the war with Iran and competing claims over the Strait of Hormuz, a passageway for roughly 20 percent of global oil supplies, have pushed energy security back to the center of national strategy.

Brandon Cockrell, deputy assistant secretary of the Army for Energy and Sustainability, said officials selected the installations through a detailed review of missions, grid feasibility, environmental issues and safety.

The bases’ responsibility for deploying troops also weighed heavily in the decision.

“It’s really difficult to look across the five and not draw the immediate conclusion that this is a direct link to power projection,” Cockrell said. “This is because we have to be able to project power. We have to be able to meet the Army’s mission if there is any vulnerabilities in the grid.”

The Army previously identified Fort Wainwright, Holston Army Ammunition Plant, Joint Base Lewis McChord and Redstone Arsenal as additional locations under consideration.

Energy resilience is also driving Army work on tactical vehicles capable of generating enough electricity for counter drone systems, electronic warfare tools and directed energy weapons.

Individual contract amounts were not disclosed, although Radiant said its agreement totals $750 million for 15 Kaleidos microreactors.

Those one megawatt systems are undergoing testing at Idaho National Laboratory’s DOME facility and are designed to be transportable and “plug-in ready.”

General Atomics is advancing its Tactical Energy System for Fort Hood with a baseline output of five megawatts and the ability to scale to 20 megawatts.

Transportable by truck or rail, the system reflects the Army’s larger objective: keeping American combat power running even when hostile actors target the grid or global fuel routes begin to buckle.

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