David Pace
IDAHO FALLS, Idaho (KIFI) — The artificial intelligence arms race is on — and Idaho National Laboratory (INL) researchers are helping support the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)’s Genesis Mission to create the world’s most intelligent, scientific instrument ever constructed.
U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright visited INL on Monday and spoke about the powerful combination of artificial intelligence and nuclear power.
“AI is this tool talked about when I was in college, but now it’s coming to fruition. It can massively enhance the productivity of each and every one of us,” Wright said. “It’s not going to replace us. It’s going to make all of us just massively more productive.
Announced in an executive order by President Donald Trump on November 24, the Genesis Mission will “connect the world’s best supercomputers, AI systems, and next-generation quantum systems,” according to a DOE press release.
The project will connect federal scientific datasets, “the world’s largest collection of such datasets,” with AI systems “to train scientific foundation models and create AI agents to test new hypotheses, automate research workflows, and accelerate scientific breakthroughs,” the executive order states.
Nuclear AI applications in Idaho
Secretary Wright highlighted the lab’s initiatives harnessing artificial intelligence in nuclear operations.
“Also learned today about the use of artificial intelligence to not only run existing reactors today better, but to develop a system that can design a reactor, that can operate a reactor, that can optimize a reactor, that can comment on the fuel cycle and the future progress, future pathway of where those fuels might go, and also enable the rapid monitoring licensing of a nuclear reactor,” Wright said.
U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and INL Director John Wagner tour the Materials and Fuels Complex at Idaho National Laboratory on Monday.
During his tour, Secretary Wright was briefed on how Idaho National Laboratory is supporting the Genesis Mission with its advanced AI and digital engineering capabilities.
“Project Genesis is a really exciting mission that unites all of our 17 laboratories and many industry partners that many have heard of — think of Amazon, Microsoft and Nvidia — together to build a unique scientific platform that connects all of our data, all of our AI technologies together to realize new scientific discoveries, to realize new developments for national security, and to solve problems for energy innovation,” said INL Director of Scientific Computing and AI Chris Ritter.
Idaho Governor Brad Little emphasized that the AI boom is fueling tech companies’ interest in small modular reactors.
“The demands, particularly in the field of artificial intelligence, is just going to require, pick your number — a 12, 20, 25 percent increase in energy, ” Little said.
Nuclear is a natural fit for tech companies with the resources required to invest in advanced reactor technology.
“What’s fantastic about nuclear technology is the high energy density, small amount of land, small amount of fuel, large amount of energy, weather independent,” Wright said. “It doesn’t matter if the sun is shining, or the wind is blowing, or what the weather is — you can get reliable, dependable power.”
Across the United States, the ambitious Genesis Mission project aims to “double the impact of U.S. scientific research and engineering in one decade,” the release states.
INL will continue to lead the way in AI research, Ritter said, finding new applications for advanced fission and nuclear energy.
INL Director John Wager, U.S. Representative Mike Simpson (R-Idaho), U.S. Secretary of Energy Chris Wright and Governor Brad Little (left to right) stand next to the DOME microreactor test bed at INL on Monday.
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