Two new partnerships forged in AI and nuclear sectors

The nuclear space is full of companies eager to power new AI development. At the same time, many AI companies want to provide services to the nuclear industry. It should come as no surprise, then, that two new partnerships have recently been announced that further bridge the AI and nuclear sectors.

AtkinsRéalis has announced a partnership with Nvidia that aims to leverage Nvidia's technologies to deploy "nuclear-powered, large-scale AI factories." Centrus Energy has announced a partnership with Palantir Technologies to use Palantir's software in support of Centrus's plans to expand enrichment capacity.

AtkinsRéalis-Nvidia: Canada-based AtkinsRéalis is an engineering services and nuclear company formerly known as SNC-Lavalin. Through its wholly-owned subsidiary Candu Energy, AtkinsRéalis is the exclusive license holder and manufacturer of Candu pressurized heavy water reactor technology.

In a March 16 press release, the company said that its partnership with Nvidia will center on new AI factories. While the details of these factories were not clearly stated, the associated promotional video depicts a site containing two large-scale Candu reactors, a shared switchyard, and a massive, Nvidia-branded data center.

AtkinsRéalis will leverage Nvidia tools to design a digital twin of this new factory design before building in the real world. Using this digital twin, the companies will further develop and optimize the design of the factory. They will also work to leverage Nvidia's Omniverse, agentic AI, and large language and visual language modeling tools to speed eventual project delivery. The companies have not provided any tentative timelines or locations for the potential factory deployments.

Centrus-Palantir: While announcements at the crossroads of reactor technology and AI data centers are commonplace, the same can't be said for AI applications in the enrichment sector.

In January, Centrus was awarded $900 million by the Department of Energy to support new enrichment capacity in Piketon, Ohio. In a new press release, the company said that it is partnering with Palantir to support that planned expansion.

Specifically, Centrus said that it will use Palantir's tools to "integrate disparate systems across classified and unclassified environments" and "optimize project controls, engineering, manufacturing execution, supply chain management, and regulatory compliance."

Overall, the partnership aims to reduce costs, time, and risks associated with the execution of Centrus's plans, and the companies have already "identified nearly $300 million in potential cost savings and efficiencies."

Centrus President and CEO Amir Vexler said, "The nearly $300 million in savings we have identified to date are only the beginning. This partnership builds on our recently announced EPC partnership with Fluor and demonstrates Centrus' day-one commitment to bring in lead times and reduce unit costs for this project."