Two additional companies, Everstar and Atomic Canyon, are also building on the collaboration. Everstar, an Nvidia Inception startup, is bringing domain-specific AI for nuclear to Azure to manage project workflows and governed data pipelines, while Atomic Canyon's Neutron platform is now available in the Microsoft Marketplace, giving nuclear developers access to these capabilities through standard enterprise procurement.
Given that the time span of new reactor construction stretches many years in the United States (fourteen years in the case of Southern Company's Vogtle Unit 3 , for just one example), there's ample room for acceleration of the construction of those plants. Whether the growth of AI data center power demand will be sustained long enough to see Nvidia and Microsoft's efforts bear fruit will remain to be seen.
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Luke James is a freelance writer and journalist.\u00a0 Although his background is in legal, he has a personal interest in all things tech, especially hardware and microelectronics, and anything regulatory.\u00a0 ","collapsible":{"enabled":true,"maxHeight":250,"readMoreText":"Read more","readLessText":"Read less"}}), "https://slice.vanilla.futurecdn.net/13-4-19/js/authorBio.js"); } else { console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); } Luke James Social Links Navigation Contributor Luke James is a freelance writer and journalist. Although his background is in legal, he has a personal interest in all things tech, especially hardware and microelectronics, and anything regulatory.
ezst036 Nah. Not gonna happen. Not in my lifetime. They'll get maybe 2 new power generating plants -tops. 2 tops, in like 40 years. High electric/energy bills are too big to fail. Reply
hotaru251 ahh yes two of the top reasons for "enshitification" of the technological world together…. Reply
usertests Aalo Atomics, an Austin-based startup building modular nuclear reactors for data centers, has said that it reduced its permitting process workload by 92% using Microsoft's Generative AI for Permitting solution, saving an estimated $80 million annually. We'll end up with corporate AIs generating documents for government AIs to read. hotaru251 said: ahh yes two of the top reasons for "enshitification" of the technological world together…. The small modular reactors are promising and can have design features that make them safer than the big ones. They have taken forever to move from hype to reality though. Same with thorium. Reply
thestryker I suppose I shouldn't point out to Microsoft that the most recent construction failures in the US were due to companies cutting corners and nothing to do with the government. The problem with nuclear is a capitalism one not a building one. Digital twins and better simulation are things every company with high design overhead have gone to so this part is nothing new. Having ai anywhere near document generation should be a giant no, but there's almost no way the current US administration would stand in its way. Reply
Air2004 "Two things matter most: enterprise-scale complexity and mission-critical reliability," Yasir Arafat, chief technology officer at Aalo, said in the blog post. Am I the only one who noticed this ? 😂 I must be getting old. Reply
Christopher_115 thestryker said: The problem with nuclear is a capitalism one not a building one. The problem is 100% government overregulation. Reply
Notton Christopher_115 said: The problem is 100% government overregulation. Are you aware that regulations are written in blood? As in, governments don't bother writing any regulation until a lot of bodies have started to pile up and it's causing a stink. The only other regulations are written in bribes. As in, one company will bribe politicians so that their product can corner the market because it is mandated by law. Reply
Dementoss Are the AI companies, that want these modular nuclear power plants built, going to pay for the very long and drawn-out process of decommissioning, when they reach the end of their useful life? Will those AI companies still exist? There are two nuclear power plants being decommissioned, near where I live in Southwest England, Hinckley Point A & B. The process will take around 50 years to complete. Modular plants will be smaller but, the problem of intense radioactivity taking decades to die away, before the reactors can be dismantled, will be the same. Reply
Dementoss Christopher_115 said: The problem is 100% government overregulation. What would you rather have, strict regulation and safe nuclear power plants or, corners cut in building and running the plants then, an outcome similar to Chernobyl or Three Mile Island? Reply
helper800 usertests said: We'll end up with corporate AIs generating documents for government AIs to read. The small modular reactors are promising and can have design features that make them safer than the big ones. They have taken forever to move from hype to reality though. Same with thorium. Dementoss said: What would you rather have, strict regulation and safe nuclear power plants or, corners cut in building and running the plants then, an outcome similar to Chernobyl or Three Mile Island? Dementoss said: Are the AI companies, that want these modular nuclear power plants built, going to pay for the very long and drawn-out process of decommissioning, when they reach the end of their useful life? Will those AI companies still exist? There are two nuclear power plants being decommissioned, near where I live in Southwest England, Hinckley Point A & B. The process will take around 50 years to complete. Modular plants will be smaller but, the problem of intense radioactivity taking decades to die away, before the reactors can be dismantled, will be the same. Tons of misinformation in here about nuclear. Nuclear is the safest form of electricity as far as work accidents. The big nuclear plants are outrageously safe. We will never see a 3 mile island type accident again, and its actually impossible for another chernobyl type event to happen again. It does not take 50 years to dismantle any nuclear plant. Highly radioactive materials have the fastest half lives. is more of the moderate to low radioactive waste materials that have many+ year half lives. The storage casks that everything is put into blocks all radiation, and can survive a hit from a missile, literally. Nuclear is also the cheapest form of energy if accounted for the lifetime of the plants which is almost always 70 years or more. Radioactive waste is also not, even in my list of most harmful catastrophes. Reply
Key considerations
- Investor positioning can change fast
- Volatility remains possible near catalysts
- Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows
Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/tech-industry/microsoft-and-nvidia-launch-ai-tools-to-speed-up-nuclear-power-plant-permitting-and-construction#main
- https://www.tomshardware.com
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Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.