The Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory (INL) and the tech powerhouse Nvidia have partnered to employ artificial intelligence (AI) to accelerate nuclear reactor development.
The partnership stems from President Donald Trump administration’s Genesis Mission, according to INL’s Tuesday press release.
The Genesis Mission comes from a Trump executive order in November that calls for a national effort to use AI to accelerate “the speed of scientific discovery” for national security and economic development.
Last week, DOE announced 26 projects connected to the Genesis Mission, including digitalizing nuclear research and development records.The department also launched a Genesis consortium, or public-private partnership, to support the mission.
According to the release, the collaboration will focus on strategic initiatives such as AI-powered nuclear design, licensing, manufacturing, construction and operation.
The effort could expand to include more stakeholders, including nuclear reactor operators, utilities and other national laboratories, involved, INL said.
“This partnership represents a transformative approach to one of our nation’s greatest challenges for deploying abundant, reliable nuclear energy at the speed and scale required for our AI-driven future,” INL Director John Wagner said. “By leveraging AI to design, license and operate reactors, we can fundamentally change the timeline for bringing advanced nuclear energy online.”