The Idaho National Laboratory and NVIDIA are collaborating to advance nuclear energy deployment using artificial intelligence (AI). The collaboration is part of the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Genesis Mission, a national effort to create a unified AI-augmented research ecosystem launched by Executive Order 14363 in November 2025. DOE recently announced 26 pressing national science and technology challenges for this Mission. The partnership will drive the challenge. codenamed Prometheus: Delivering Nuclear Energy that is Faster, Safer, and Cheaper.
Prometheus will accelerate nuclear energy deployment by using AI to design, license, manufacture, construct, and operate reactors with human-in-the-loop workflows, enabling at least twice schedule acceleration and more than 50% operational cost reductions. This will address two critical national priorities: harnessing artificial intelligence to drive a new industrial and scientific revolution; and meeting surging electricity demand to power the economy of the next century.
The collaboration is designed to create a virtuous cycle where AI enables rapid nuclear deployment, and nuclear energy provides the baseload power required for next-generation AI infrastructure. “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,” said INL Director John Wagner. “By leveraging AI to design, license and operate reactors, we can fundamentally change the timeline for bringing advanced nuclear energy online.”
John Josephakis, Global Vice President of Sales and Business Development for HPC/Supercomputing at NVIDIA, noted: “Combining INL’s decades of nuclear expertise with NVIDIA AI infrastructure will put AI to work to design, license and operate reactors faster, safer and at lower cost – delivering the abundant energy needed to power scientific discovery.”
Rian Bahran, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Energy for Nuclear Reactors said: “This is the moment to decisively advance AI-accelerated nuclear energy deployment, increasing America’s energy affordability while also catalysing the development of Artificial Intelligence in the United States. This public-private partnership presents a targeted approach to AI-acceleration that goes beyond incremental ‘uplift’ improvements. It has the potential to transform the paradigm for how we deploy nuclear energy in addition to how we advance R&D and discovery.”
The collaboration may expand to include additional stakeholders including nuclear reactor developers, utilities, investors, and other national laboratories to establish a comprehensive ecosystem for AI-driven nuclear deployment. It will focus on several strategic initiatives:
- AI-powered nuclear design, licensing, manufacturing, construction, and operation: Developing generative AI, digital twins, and agentic workflows to accelerate nuclear energy deployment.
- Industry advancement: Supporting broader nuclear industry adoption of accelerated computing and AI tools while providing guidance to regulatory entities on state-of-the-art autonomous and digital nuclear capabilities.
- Supercomputing infrastructure: Leveraging DOE leadership-class supercomputers for large-scale model training and simulation while evaluating on-premises NVIDIA AI systems for real-time operations.
- Data validation: Using INL’s legacy nuclear data, laboratory data, and on-site reactors to provide real-world data for digital twin validation. These include the Neutron Radiography Reactor (NRAD) and the Microreactor Applications Research Validation and Evaluation (MARVEL – not yet operational).
- Code acceleration: Accelerating critical nuclear simulation codes including MOOSE, BISON, Griffin, and Pronghorn on NVIDIA GPU architectures to unlock unprecedented simulation capabilities.
DOE said that, under the Genesis Mission, INL, Oak Ridge National Laboratory and Argonne National Laboratory are collaborating with industry and academia “to provide more affordable energy while reducing human error, strengthening national security, and directly supporting US energy dominance with multi-billion-dollar cost savings per gigawatt of generating capacity”.
