The agency is a foundation established by Korean Government to develop i-SMR.

Dr Kim graduated from nuclear engineering department of Seoul National University in 1988 and completed his master and Ph.D. degrees in nuclear engineering at KAIST in 1990 and 1993, respectively. Dr Kim worked to develop APR1400 in Korea Hydro and Nuclear Power Co, (KHNP) since 1997. And he had major role to get the standard design approval of APR1400 at 2002. In 2006, he led the national project to develop GEN III+ PWR, APR+.

From 2015, he was the project manager for APR1400 USNRC design certification and EUR certification. From 2020, he was the president of Central Research Institute (CRI) of KHNP and he planned the innovative SMR development with the Korean government.