Exclusive: The nuclear industry has a new AI tool — with Nvidia backing
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Atomic Canyon is rolling out an AI assistant developed with major industry groups to help nuclear plant workers make better and faster use of operating records and technical knowledge.
- The startup, which provides AI tailored to the nuclear industry, is also getting a funding lift from chip giant Nvidia.
Why it matters: The launch could boost industry AI use to maintain and expand nuclear energy.
- Power companies are seeking to boost output from today's plants, revive closed reactors, and build new ones.
- Yet as nuclear enjoys its best growth prospects in decades amid rising AI power demand, there's a shortage of engineers and other technical talent.
"I do not see any way the nuclear renaissance, revolution, whatever we want to call it, I do not see any way we could possibly achieve our goals if we do not leverage generative AI applications to enable the expansion of the capacity of our workforce," founder and CEO Trey Lauderdale told Axios.
- Using AI to help workers do more — not ever replace them — is a "perfect use case for trusted, purpose-built generative AI applications," he said.
What's next: Atomic Canyon and industry groups on Tuesday will announce "fleetwide availability" of the "Nuclear Industry Virtual Assistant," or NIVA.
- It's designed to help plant operators navigate and more efficiently access massive amounts of documents for more informed decision-making and problem-solving.
- NIVA is the first platform of its kind accessible to commercial nuclear power plants that are members of the industry groups, they said jointly.
🏀 State of play: The firm worked with three organizations to develop and validate the tool — the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), and the Nuclear Energy Institute.
- These groups chose Atomic Canyon to develop it through a competitive solicitation process launched last year, Lauderdale said.
- Constellation Energy, which has the country's largest nuclear fleet, is already among NIVA's users, the announcement states.
📸 The big picture: "NIVA demonstrates how collaborative innovation can help transform decades of operating experience and technical expertise into actionable insights," Steve Swilley, EPRI's chief nuclear officer, said in a statement.
🛠️ How it works: Atomic Canyon has trained AI models on vast amounts of public Nuclear Regulatory Commission information.
- NIVA combines those trained models with proprietary industry information, like operating records and corrective procedures for equipment.
- The initial tools are a "knowledge assistant" and an "operating experience assistant," while a "troubleshooting" tool is in development.
👟 Catch up quick: Nvidia and former Vanguard Group CEO Tim Buckley are new investors, and Atomic Canyon raised new funds from existing investor Plug and Play Ventures.
- Amounts were not disclosed.
- Atomic Canyon has also worked with the Energy Department's Oak Ridge National Lab on streamlining licensing for new plants.
🔍 What we're watching: With NIVA launched, Atomic Canyon's business model envisions more plant-specific contracts, akin to its ongoing work with the Diablo Canyon plant in California.
- "This is ... validation of us as a company and a platform," Lauderdale said of NIVA.
