The advancement of the next generation of nuclear reactors has received a boost with the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) in Beijing between the Chinese and the South African developers of pebble bed technology. Pebble Bed Modular Reactor (Pty) Ltd (PBMR) of South Africa has been developing the pebble bed technology in parallel with the Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology (INET) of Tsinghua University and Chinergy Co Ltd of China, whose pebble bed concept is based on a 10 MW (thermal) research reactor that was started up in Beijing in December 2000 and achieved full power operation in January 2003.