NuScale Power stock drew Wall Street analyst price target of 195% upside, reflecting confidence in small modular reactor (SMR) deployment to AI datacenters.

NuScale Power (NYSE: SMR) has had a difficult 2026, with shares falling approximately 40% since the start of the year. Yet one Wall Street analyst remains decidedly bullish. George Gianarikas, an analyst at Canaccord Genuity, believes NuScale stock has 195% upside potential from its current price. He is not alone—three other analysts tracked by TipRanks.com believe the stock has at least 100% upside over the next 12 months.

Gianarikas's bullish case rests on multiple factors. He is particularly excited about NuScale's partnership with ENTRA1 and TVA to develop a 6-gigawatt small modular reactor (SMR) project on the eastern U.S. coast, which he describes as "a transformative opportunity that could significantly accelerate NuScale's path to commercialization and scale." This project represents NuScale's most concrete near-term pathway to commercial operation, especially given the company's expectation to sign a power purchasing agreement by the end of 2026 that would commit a utility to purchasing power from the facility, potentially for decades.

Gianarikas is also bullish on NuScale's Romanian SMR project, which recently received regulatory approval. However, this project has experienced significant delays over the years and is not expected to achieve commercial viability until 2033 or 2034, limiting its near-term impact.

The critical element of Gianarikas's analysis is his use of a 5% terminal growth rate in his valuation model. Most analysts forecast company finances for only a limited number of years, then apply a flat growth rate extending that final projection indefinitely into perpetuity. Because this rate compounds forever, even modest changes to the assumption produce substantial impacts on the final valuation. Terminal growth rates typically range between 2% and 4%, designed to approximate expected inflation or GDP growth. A 5% rate is generally considered aggressive.

While NuScale's long-term growth runway is substantial and could justify elevated growth assumptions, investors should recognize that Gianarikas's optimism stems not solely from the stock's depressed valuation, but significantly from aggressive modeling assumptions about the company's growth trajectory.