Idaho Lab teams with Amazon to fast track AI driven nuclear energy systems

Idaho Lab teams with Amazon to fast track AI driven nuclear energy systems
by Clarence Oxford
Los Angeles CA (SPX) Jul 30, 2025

The Idaho National Laboratory (INL) has entered into a collaboration with Amazon Web Services (AWS) to harness cloud-based artificial intelligence (AI) technologies for advancing nuclear energy solutions. The partnership will enable INL to scale and accelerate its development of AI tools for nuclear reactor design, licensing, construction, and operation.

As a national leader in applying AI to nuclear energy, INL is creating a suite of AI-driven technologies aimed at cutting costs and timelines while enhancing safety. These innovations include autonomous control systems that could support the next generation of advanced nuclear reactors.

AWS will support INL with high-performance computing power and AI models through services such as Amazon Bedrock, Inferentia and Trainium chips, and Amazon SageMaker. These tools will allow INL researchers to access a range of foundation models, GPUs, and customized services tailored for complex scientific workloads.

"Our collaboration with Amazon Web Services marks a significant leap forward in integrating advanced AI technologies into our nuclear energy research and development initiatives," said INL Director John Wagner. "This collaboration underscores the critical role of linking the nation's nuclear energy laboratory with AWS. By leveraging AWS's cutting-edge cloud computing and AI solutions, we can accelerate nuclear energy deployment for America."

The initiative supports INL's broader goal to foster collaboration among U.S. Department of Energy laboratories, AI developers, and nuclear energy companies. INL's Chris Ritter emphasized the importance of access to scalable cloud resources, noting that AWS's infrastructure will facilitate "nuclear energy AI at scale."

"Through this collaboration with AWS, we have access to AI models, GPUs (graphical processing units) and specialized cloud services, including Amazon's Bedrock service, which will enable INL researchers to use many leading foundation models to build nuclear energy applications," Ritter said. "Amazon offers customized chips such as Inferentia and Trainium, specialized tools such as Amazon SageMaker, and solution architects to partner our laboratory with the commercial AI industry."

Part of the joint effort includes creating a digital twin of a small modular reactor - virtual replicas that integrate real-time data from physical systems to support advanced modeling and autonomous functionality. These reactors, which range from 20 to 300 megawatts of output, are seen as critical to powering the data centers of the future.

"AWS's powerful AI and computing technology will support Idaho National Laboratory's development of autonomous nuclear reactors to pioneer a future where civilian nuclear operations are safer, smarter and more responsive," said David Appel, vice president of U.S. Federal and Global National Security and Defense for AWS. "We're proud to collaborate with the Department of Energy and Idaho National Laboratory to accelerate safe advanced nuclear energy that will strengthen America's energy leadership and our technological edge."

Ritter added, "INL is committed to accelerating nuclear energy deployment, advancing autonomous nuclear operations and leading nuclear energy science through transformational AI technology - achieved with AWS and the nuclear energy industry."