Groups Partnering to Develop AI Software to Speed Nuclear Reactor Construction

A software group that uses artificial intelligence (AI) to help automate processes said it was joining with a nuclear power deployment company on an AI-driven system to accelerate construction of nuclear reactors.

Palantir Technologies on June 26 said it will work with The Nuclear Company, a nuclear power startup, to jointly create a nuclear operating system (NOS) to simplify reactor builds. The companies on Thursday said the software system would allow for faster construction of new reactors, and provide lower costs.

The deal comes as the U.S. government has said it will support nuclear power and other baseload power generation technologies to provide more electricity for energy-intensive data centers and AI initiatives. Palantir said Lexington, Kentucky-based The Nuclear Company will pay $100 million over a five-year period for development of the NOS.

Palantir, with headquarters in Denver, Colorado, and two dozen offices worldwide, in a news release said “NOS will transform the construction of nuclear reactors into a data-driven, predictable process, enabling The Nuclear Company to build plants faster and safer for less.” The company said “nuclear projects are almost always over budget and behind schedule.”

The NOS will be built on Palantir’s Foundry software platform.

“The future of energy security and sovereignty will be shaped by our ability to deploy advanced technologies at scale,” said Mike Gallagher, Head of Defense at Palantir Technologies. “This partnership marks the first time Palantir’s software will be used to help power the next generation of nuclear energy infrastructure. By integrating our operating system with The Nuclear Company’s ambitious vision, we are laying the foundation for a new era of resilient, intelligent and secure energy systems in the United States and beyond.”

The project is the latest project in Palantir’s Warp Speed initiative, a manufacturing operating system designed to support industry. The companies on Thursday said the NOS “will be delivered by a dedicated engineering team embedded with The Nuclear Company’s construction and engineering staff, all working to unify previously siloed nuclear data across construction, supply chain, workforce, engineering, and safety systems.”

Palantir said the NOS will provide:

• Schedule Certainty: With NOS, construction teams will receive instantaneous, context-aware guidance—from the availability of certain parts and materials to the weather—that adapts to real-time constraints, so teams can work rather than wait.
• Cost Savings: A supply chain will track and verify all parts, as well as prevent shipment errors, material shortages and lost documentation. And when delays appear imminent, NOS will initiate backup options or prioritize other work in its place.
• Problem Prevention: Sensors placed across construction sites can feed data in real-time to a digital twin model of the site, allowing leaders to track progress with precision and compare what’s actually happening to the original plans. By using predictive analytics, teams can spot potential problems early, catching issues before they become expensive mistakes.
• Regulatory Confidence: AI will turn a traditionally labor- and time-intensive task to a process that becomes nearly instantaneous. Large language models can rapidly review tens of thousands of documents, while AI agents trained on regulatory requirements will help validate the data recorded automatically at construction sites.

“Our mission is to build nuclear power the way America once built its greatest infrastructure projects—fast, safe and at scale,” said The Nuclear Company Founder & CEO Jonathan Webb. “With Palantir, we have a technology partner who shares our sense of urgency and understands that nuclear isn’t just an energy issue—it’s a national security imperative. NOS is how we finally break the cycle of delays, deliver a new energy future, and protect America’s nuclear leadership from China, so we don’t lose it like we did manufacturing decades ago.”

—Darrell Proctor is a senior editor for POWER.