In the combat against global warming in the form of both international collaboration and national effort, China is committed to the dual goal of reaching carbon peaking by 2035 and achieving carbon neutral by 2060. Nuclear power, as an indispensable pillar of Chinese energy sector, is expected to see significant grow in both total install capacity as well as in share percentage among the energy mix in the years to come. Historical and predictive data of both domestic and international energy industry developments were collected as references against which the potential growth of China’s nuclear energy industry is estimated. Market demands, technology readiness, potential nuclear-site resources are surveyed and used as input parameters to the nuclear energy development path model that was fined tuned in-house. The future development path for China’s nuclear energy industry is predicted by the model in quantitative indicators such as total installed capacity, number of total coastal sites, and number of total inland sites. It is also noticed that the versatile applications of nuclear energy beyond power generation, such as residential heating, industrial heat generation, desalination, and hydrogen production, will serve as another thrust for the growth of the general nuclear energy industry in China, and will make significant contribution to the green-house gas emission reduction in the grand endeavor towards carbon neutrality. Due to space limitations, this paper does not address limiting factors such as uranium resources, fuel reprocessing, and nuclear fuel cycle capabilities, although we note that these are also critical considerations for the future development of nuclear energy.