Arizona artificial intelligence startup Nuclearn has raised over US$10 million to help deploy its automation technology in more nuclear reactors.
Announced Tuesday, the capital raise will also enable the company to accelerate advancement of the technology’s capabilities.
“Trained on millions of specialized nuclear industry documents and diagrams, the technology understands not only what nuclear professionals need, but also the regulatory and safety context behind every decision,” the atomic AI specialist specified in a press release.
Chief Financial Officer Jerrold Vincent has explained that Nuclearn’s goal since its inception has been to enable nuclear facilities to work smarter, not harder. Nuclearn claims that its platform can automate highly intricate workflows that would normally demand weeks of labour by experts. Its founders have over three decades of experience in the field.
“Our platform doesn’t just process nuclear terminology” said Vincent, “it understands the operational context, regulatory implications, and safety considerations behind every decision.”
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Founders were inspired by working at nuclear plant
Co-founder and CEO, Bradley Fox, is a seasoned test engineer that worked at the Palo Verde nuclear station in Arizona for about five years. Furthermore, co-founder Vincent is a former systems analyst at that nuclear plant. The desire to streamline workflows while serving at this facility helped inspire the creation of Nuclearn in 2021.
Their combined expertise from those roles and more recent positions lies in nuclear engineering, business intelligence and AI solutions.
Fox was recognized by Nuclear News as one its 40 under 40 last year. His company’s tech platform has an annual subscription-based pay structure.
Tasks their models perform include power outage planning, analyzing the condition of reactors and preparing regulatory documentation. They have been specifically trained with nuclear jargon and terminology.
“Big thank you to our investors BlueBear Capital, SJF Ventures, AZ-VC and Nucleation Capital,” said Fox on social media.
Nuclear power and AI go hand in hand as artificial intelligence workloads demand immense amounts of steady energy.
“AI for nuclear reactors!?!” could anything possibly BE buzzier?!” commented climate tech reporter Katie Brigham. “NO! Nuclearn has trained its own nuclear-specific LLM to expedite reactor operations and licensing processes.”
In other news, Nuclearn recently became a member of the Texas Nuclear Alliance.
Read more: Japan turns nuclear waste into rechargeable batteries
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