The US Department of Energy (DOE) has selected the Prometheus project to receive a Phase II award of $60m over three years (subject to appropriations). Prometheus aims to leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to design, license, manufacture, construct, and operate nuclear reactors with human-in-the-loop workflows. It will integrate AI into nuclear fuel fabrication and use AI for nuclear legacy document management.
The funding was announced at the Genesis Mission Summit in Washington DC. The Genesis Mission, launched in November 2025, aims to develop an integrated platform that connects supercomputers, experimental facilities, AI systems, and unique datasets across every major scientific domain to double the productivity and impact of American research and innovation within a decade. DOE released the first request for applications under the Genesis Mission in March, inviting teams to apply for smaller scale Phase I awards and larger scale Phase II awards.
Prometheus was one of the 278 Genesis Mission projects selected following a “rigorous merit review process and the first to receive a Phase II award. DOE and the Genesis Mission selectees will now undergo a negotiation process before any funding is issued, DOE said.
Prometheus is a massive 32‑partner collaborative effort between Idaho National Laboratory (INL), Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Argonne National Laboratory (ANL), Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) along with more than 20 industry partners including Nvidia, Amazon Web Services (AWS) and leading research universities including North Carolina State and Penn State as well as advanced small modular reactor (SMR) developers such as X‑energy, TerraPower and Oklo.
X-energy joined Prometheus as a founding Tier 1 partner, committing $10m in private capital and offering its proprietary Xe-100 SMR and TRISO-X fuel designs to serve as the project’s primary technical platform. Amazon has directly invested in the X-energy and secured the option to deploy more than 5 GWe of Xe-100 projects in the US by 2039. In February, Nvidia and INL announced a collaboration under the Genesis Mission to create a “virtuous cycle” with AI enabling rapid nuclear deployment, and nuclear energy providing the baseload power required for next-generation AI infrastructure.
Building on nine months of participation as a Genesis Mission kickstart seed team, Prometheus is now empowered to address nuclear energy’s most pressing challenges: development timelines and costs. The team has raised more than $200m in industry cost share and $30m in industry capital to execute the project and help deliver nuclear energy faster, safer and cheaper.
“America’s nuclear future depends on our ability to move with greater urgency and drive down costs, while maintaining the uncompromising commitment to safety and technical rigor that defines our industry,” INL Director John Wagner said. “Prometheus brings together nuclear science and artificial intelligence to help us do exactly that.”
Joe Hoagland, ORNL associate laboratory director for the Fusion & Fission Energy and Science Directorate, noted: “Oak Ridge brings deep expertise and capabilities in advanced manufacturing, high-performance computing, and nuclear energy science and technologies, which are essential to developing AI-enabled nuclear systems. Prometheus will allow us to combine these strengths with our experience in nuclear licensing and operations to create a unified development pipeline that lowers barriers and enables faster innovation across the nuclear sector.”
ANL Associate Laboratory Director for Nuclear Technologies & National Security Kirsten Laurin-Kovitz said: “Argonne’s leadership in AI, digital twins and computational science positions us to advance the core technologies that make Prometheus possible. This collaboration demonstrates how national laboratories can combine distinct capabilities to create a transformative platform that reshapes what is achievable for US nuclear energy.”
Toby Townsend, SNL Associate Laboratories Director for Deterrence, Science & Energy said SNL plays a key role in Prometheus through its nuclear energy safety and security test beds, contributing essential national security expertise to a project designed to accelerate the deployment of safe, affordable nuclear energy. “At a national scale, Prometheus will help us meet surging electricity demand while supporting the nation’s strategic technological leadership.”
Prometheus uses DOE’s advanced test reactors and supercomputing capabilities to embed AI across every stage of the nuclear lifecycle using frontier AI models to streamline reactor structures and fuel efficiency. This includes:
- Regulatory Licensing: Speeding up complex regulatory documentation and compliance workflows.
- Manufacturing & Construction: Optimising parts manufacturing, fuel fabrication, and supply chain timelines.
- Semi-Autonomous Operations: Developing intelligent workflows for safer, automated, and more cost-effective reactor operations.
The ultimate goal of Prometheus is to dramatically lower capital costs and slash development timelines, allowing private developers to rapidly scale their commercial nuclear portfolios to meet the massive grid demands of the modern era.
The Prometheus project team has already achieved several milestones. It has:
- Created the first digital twin of an operating nuclear reactor;
- Showed that AI could control a simulated small reactor;
- Reduced engineering analysis from days to hours; and
- Produced AI-designed hardware that was installed in an active test reactor.
Now, with $60m in federal support and more than $200 million in industry commitments, Prometheus aims to: cut design and licensing timelines by 10 times; cut manufacturing time by three times; and reduce operating staff needs and overall deployment timelines by 50%.
