China General Nuclear Power Group (CGN) has unveiled Hualong One 2.0, an upgraded version of its flagship Generation III-plus pressurised water nuclear reactor. The design was launched at CGN’s 2026 Annual Sustainability Conference in Shenzhen. The next-generation version introduces fundamental design simplifications and smart automation to establish a highly competitive, mass-producible atomic energy framework.
The updated system integrates FirmSys, a proprietary digital instrumentation and control system featuring artificial intelligence models and knowledge graphs. This “nerve centre” reduces daily manual plant operations by 30%, slashes I&C hardware cabinets by 40%, and cuts general maintenance workloads by half.
Without altering the reactor’s total power generation capacity, version 2.0 shrinks the overall nuclear-island building volume by 21%. It shortens physical pipeline lengths by 31% and reduces process valves by 25%. The structural compression reduces overall nuclear-island installation tasks by one-third. This significantly compresses the building schedule and lowers the upfront baseline construction costs.
The 2.0 framework introduces comprehensive upgrades spanning 14 distinct safety features, drastically diminishing a plant’s dependency on outside power or manual human intervention during emergency accidents.
The Chinese State Council designated the Phase III units (Units 5 and 6) of CGN’s Taipingling nuclear power plant in Guangdong province, alongside Phase II of China National Nuclear Corporation’s (CNNC) Jinqimen plant, as the official initial demonstration projects to construct these upgraded Hualong One 2.0 units.
CGN has made nearly 100 design improvements for Hualong One 2.0 based on experience from the large-scale deployment and operation of Hualong One 1.0, Chief Expert Niu Wenhua said. Currently, 10 Hualong One 1.0 units are in use in China and overseas, while 37 others have been approved or are under construction.
“Hualong One 2.0 is not a technology built from scratch to replace the old one,” Niu noted. “It represents a systematic enhancement of the mature Hualong One design.” Hualong One 2.0 has been upgraded in five key areas: safety, construction schedule, cost, operation and maintenance, and environmental protection, he said.
