Exclusive: Atomic Canyon is rolling out an AI assistant developed with major industry groups to help nuclear plant workers make better and faster use of operating records and technical knowledge.

• The startup, which provides AI tailored to the nuclear industry, is also getting a funding lift from chip giant Nvidia.

Why it matters: The launch could boost industry AI use to maintain and expand nuclear energy.

• Power companies are seeking to boost output from today's plants, revive closed reactors, and build new ones.
• Yet as nuclear enjoys its best growth prospects in decades amid rising AI power demand, there's a shortage of engineers and other technical talent.

"I do not see any way the nuclear renaissance, revolution, whatever we want to call it, I do not see any way we could possibly achieve our goals if we do not leverage generative AI applications to enable the expansion of the capacity of our workforce," founder and CEO Trey Lauderdale told Axios.

• Using AI to help workers do more — not ever replace them — is a "perfect use case for trusted, purpose-built generative AI applications," he said.

What's next: Atomic Canyon and industry groups will today announce "fleetwide availability" of the "Nuclear Industry Virtual Assistant," or NIVA.

• It's designed to help plant operators navigate and more efficiently access massive amounts of documents for more informed decision-making and problem-solving.
• NIVA is the first platform of its kind accessible to commercial nuclear power plants that are members of the industry groups, they said jointly.

🏀 State of play: The firm worked with three organizations to develop and validate the tool — the Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), and the Nuclear Energy Institute.

• These groups chose Atomic Canyon to develop it through a competitive solicitation process launched last year, Lauderdale said.
• Constellation Energy, which has the country's largest nuclear fleet, is already among NIVA's users, the announcement states.

📸 The big picture: "NIVA demonstrates how collaborative innovation can help transform decades of operating experience and technical expertise into actionable insights," Steve Swilley, EPRI's chief nuclear officer, said in a statement.

🛠️ How it works: Atomic Canyon has trained AI models on vast amounts of public Nuclear Regulatory Commission information.

• NIVA combines those trained models with proprietary industry information, like operating records and corrective procedures for equipment.
• The initial tools are a "knowledge assistant" and an "operating experience assistant," while a "troubleshooting" tool is in development.

👟 Catch up quick: Nvidia and former Vanguard Group CEO Tim Buckley are new investors, and Atomic Canyon raised new funds from existing investor Plug and Play Ventures.

• Amounts were not disclosed.
• Atomic Canyon has also worked with the Energy Department's Oak Ridge National Lab on streamlining licensing for new plants.

🔍 What we're watching: With NIVA launched, Atomic Canyon's business model envisions more plant-specific contracts, akin to its ongoing work with the Diablo Canyon plant in California.

• "This is ... validation of us as a company and a platform," Lauderdale said of NIVA.

Venture finance for startups commercializing micro-reactors has edged past funding for small modular reactors, their larger cousins in the advanced nuclear space, per market intelligence firm Currence.

Why it matters: "With a new licensing pathway in the US, active government backing, and growing defense and data center demand, the micro-reactor business model is looking like the next big thing in nuclear at large," the firm notes.

Catch up quick: The second half of 2026 has already brought two big rounds for micro-reactors — Valar Atomics' $1 billion Series B round and Antares' $470 million Series C.

• "Funding is lumpy, but on 2026 year-to-date, micro-reactor developers have already out-raised SMR developers, a first," Currence finds.

Zoom out: Definitions vary, but micro-reactors generate up to 20 megawatts of power, while SMRs are in the 75-350MW range, the firm notes.

• The latter is still "small" compared to traditional gigawatt-scale units like the Westinghouse AP1000.

⛏️ Breaking: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) is trying to use state power to thwart a planned copper-nickel mine near the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW).

• The big picture: It's the latest wrinkle in the long-disputed project that's backed by Trump officials. It also illustrates the wider political tension between boosting U.S. mineral output and conservation.
• Driving the news: Walz issued an executive order that bars state agencies from issuing mining leases and permits — and reviewing existing leases — in the Rainy River Headwaters Watershed. It's a region that overlaps with the BWCAW.
• Catch up quick: Earlier this year Congress passed — and President Trump signed — a measure to reverse a Biden-era moratorium on mining in the region. Go deeper

⛽ Via Reuters, the U.S. diesel "crack spread" — the gap between crude and diesel prices — hit an all-time high of $102.20 per barrel yesterday.

• Why it matters: The data point is the latest sign of the growing diesel crunch. Prices for the fuel — a key input for the cost of shipped goods, farm products, construction and more — are rising faster than gasoline.
• State of play: The average U.S. retail price is up about 15 cents per gallon over the last week to $5.47 per gallon this morning, per AAA data.
• The bottom line: The throttled Strait of Hormuz and Ukrainian attacks on Russian refineries are squeezing supply from two fronts. "[F]or diesel consumers the worst retail prices still could be in the months ahead," GasBuddy analyst Patrick De Haan said via X.

⚡ ICYMI: OpenAI yesterday announced a 20-year lease for a sprawling data center in central Ohio with financing partly guaranteed by Nvidia.

• Why it matters: The plan ultimately envisions 9.2 gigawatts of gas-fired power to be built in stages. That would be the nation's largest power plant. Go deeper

"The real hazard of the Hormuz crisis is not the shock that the world endured but the overconfidence it may foster. The closure of the world's most important oil chokepoint should have tipped the global economy into recession, and that it did not will tempt many to conclude that energy security risks no longer matter."