Atomic Canyon and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) have signed a memorandum of understanding to develop AI-powered tools for nuclear regulatory licensing and compliance. The partnership brings together Atomic Canyon’s nuclear AI expertise with ORNL’s world-class supercomputing infrastructure.
Supercomputing Meets Nuclear Licensing
At the heart of the collaboration is ORNL’s Frontier supercomputer — the world’s first exascale computing system. Atomic Canyon will leverage Frontier’s computational power to train AI models on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s ADAMS database, which contains over 40 years of regulatory documents, safety analyses, and licensing records.
The goal is to dramatically reduce the time and cost of nuclear licensing processes, which currently require extensive manual review of thousands of documents per application.
Why It Matters
As the United States looks to expand its nuclear fleet — from license extensions for existing plants to approvals for next-generation reactor designs — licensing timelines are a critical bottleneck. AI tools that can accurately navigate regulatory frameworks could help accelerate the path from application to approval while maintaining the industry’s rigorous safety standards.
Atomic Canyon’s partnership with ORNL is part of a broader effort to work with national laboratories on advancing AI for nuclear energy. Learn more about our collaborative approach on the collaborators page.