Idaho National Laboratory (INL) will be using artificial intelligence tools to accelerate its development of small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) that will help power AI data centers autonomously.
Those tools are being provided through a new partnership with Amazon Web Services (AWS), the national lab said on July 23, and will enable “safe and reliable autonomous operation of nuclear reactors,” to create “nuclear energy AI at scale,” according to Chris Ritter, division director of Scientific Computing and AI at INL.
“Through this collaboration with AWS, we have access to AI models, GPUs (graphical processing units) and specialized cloud services, including Amazon’s Bedrock service, which will enable INL researchers to use many leading foundation models to build nuclear energy applications,” Ritter said in a statement.
INL said that not only will the tools help fast-track the deployment of nuclear technologies, but they could also help make those reactors – which would be developed through Laboratory Directed Research and Development funding – autonomous.
“AWS’s powerful AI and computing technology will support Idaho National Laboratory’s development of autonomous nuclear reactors to pioneer a future where civilian nuclear operations are safer, smarter and more responsive,” said David Appel, vice president of U.S. Federal and Global National Security and Defense for AWS.
AI tools will be used to create a digital twin of an SMR that will use near real-time data from the physical reactor “to enable advanced modeling and simulation,” which INL added “is an important step toward using AI for autonomous operation.”
The announcement closely preceded the Trump administration’s announcement on Thursday that INL was selected as one of four sites to host an AI data center and related energy infrastructure, after the Energy Department had identified INL in April as one of 16 potential sites to construct the centers.
Partnering with AWS is part of INL’s efforts to develop a “suite of technologies that use AI to reduce the costs and timeframes of designing, licensing, building and operating nuclear facilities,” according to the lab.