The startup wants to become an OpenAI for the nuclear industry.

The U.S. startup Atomic Canyon is working with federal nuclear laboratories to make artificial intelligence more useful and reliable for the nuclear energy industry.

The company has announced a partnership with Idaho National Laboratory to develop industry-wide benchmarks for testing AI systems used in nuclear power plants. These standards will measure how well different AI models perform tasks such as supporting plant design, operations, and compliance. The benchmarks will be made public, with the goal of helping utilities understand which tools actually work and which do not.

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The move comes as interest in using AI in nuclear energy grows, driven in part by rising electricity demand from data centers and AI companies themselves. While AI has been widely promoted as a way to make nuclear construction and operations faster and cheaper, progress has been slow and uneven.

Many utilities have experimented with general-purpose AI tools, only to find that they struggle with the complexity and safety requirements of nuclear systems.

While testing existing AI models, the company found that they often made mistakes or “hallucinated” when dealing with nuclear terminology.

To address this, Atomic Canyon worked with national laboratories to access high-performance computing resources and refine its models. The company focuses on systems that ground AI responses in verified documents, reducing the risk of errors.

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For now, Atomic Canyon is deliberately limiting what its AI is allowed to do. It concentrates on document search and organization, where mistakes are inconvenient but not dangerous. More advanced uses, such as drafting technical documents, may come later and would still require human review.

To support its growth, Atomic Canyon recently raised $7 million in seed funding led by Energy Impact Partners, with participation from several other investors. The funding will help the company expand its technology and work with more nuclear operators.

By teaming up with Idaho National Laboratory to set clear testing standards, Atomic Canyon aims to cut through the hype around AI in nuclear energy and push the industry toward tools that are practical, safe, and fit for purpose.

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Atomic Canyon was founded in 2023 by Trey Lauderdale, who became interested in the problem through his local ties to California’s Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant. He learned that nuclear facilities are overwhelmed by documentation, often managing billions of pages of technical, regulatory, and maintenance records. Finding the right document can be slow, costly, and frustrating.

The company’s first product uses AI to help engineers, technicians, and compliance teams quickly search and retrieve the documents they need. Atomic Canyon began by working directly with Diablo Canyon and has since attracted interest from utilities representing a large share of the U.S. nuclear fleet.

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