Supercomputer Frontier Trains AI for Nuclear Reactors
The nuclear energy sector is often bogged down by mountains of paperwork, but a new collaboration aims to change that using high-performance computing. Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has partnered with startup Atomic Canyon to use the world’s fastest supercomputer, Frontier, for a unique artificial intelligence project.
Instead of simulating physical reactions, this initiative focuses on training AI models to navigate the immense bureaucracy of the nuclear industry. The team is utilizing Frontier’s exascale capabilities to process over 52 million documents from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s massive database.
This vast repository, known as the Agencywide Documents Access and Management System (ADAMS), contains decades of technical reports and safety records. Searching through this complex data manually is incredibly time-consuming for engineers and regulators.
To solve this, the project is developing an open-source AI platform called Neutron. By leveraging Frontier’s thousands of AMD GPUs, the system can learn to understand and retrieve specific technical information with high accuracy.
Diablo Canyon Power Plant in California has already begun using this technology to improve its operational efficiency. If successful, this tool could significantly accelerate the licensing process for new reactors and help extend the lifespan of existing ones.
Do you think trusting AI with nuclear regulatory data is a step in the right direction? Share your thoughts in the comments.
