Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Atomic Canyon, an artificial intelligence company, have partnered to enhance the nuclear power plant licensing process.
Advancing Licensing Process With Artificial Intelligence
The ORNL said the two organizations, which signed a memorandum of understanding during the Nuclear Opportunities Workshop held at the Knoxville Convention Center, will incorporate artificial intelligence into the licensing process, particularly for license application reviews.
The MOU focuses on utilizing high-performance computing to simulate reactor designs for safety evaluations and AI to automate the application reviews, which are intended to enhance and accelerate the licensing process.
The collaboration will leverage Atomic Canyon’s Neutron AI platform, powered by the FERMI AI model developed using ORNL’s Frontier supercomputer. FERMI models are taught technical nuclear industry language from documents in the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s ADAMS database, which contains details of all nuclear reactors in the United States. Neutron AI streamlines how nuclear power professionals search for information and offers a clearer context for complex materials.
In addition, Atomic Canyon will accelerate the development of its Neutron Enterprise, a version of their Neutron AI that utilizes advanced cybersecurity technology and other capabilities to safeguard nuclear information.
“Our mission at Atomic Canyon is to build the most advanced generative AI platform for the nuclear industry. ORNL’s expertise in nuclear science and high-performance computing was critical for us to be able to build AI in a reliable format,” said Atomic Canyon CEO Trey Lauderdale.
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