Babcock & Wilcox Enterprises, Inc. is an American energy technology and service provider that is active and has operations in many international markets with its headquarters in Akron, Ohio. Historically, the company is best known for their steam boilers.

The company was founded in 1867 in Providence, Rhode Island, by partners Stephen Wilcox and George Babcock to manufacture and market Wilcox’s patented water-tube boiler.^[2] B&W’s list of innovations and firsts include the world’s first installed utility boiler (1881); manufacture of boilers to power New York City’s first subway (1902); first pulverized coal power plant (1918); design and manufacture of components for USS Nautilus, the world’s first nuclear-powered submarine (1953–55); the first supercritical pressure coal-fired boiler (1957); design and supply of reactors for the first U.S. built nuclear-powered surface ship, NS Savannah (1961).^[3]

In 1929, B&W installed the world’s first commercial size recovery boiler using the magnesium bisulfite process in Quebec, Canada. Between 1941 and 1945, B&W designed and delivered 4,100 marine boilers for combat and merchant ships, including 95 percent of the US fleet in Tokyo Bay at Japanese surrender.