(IDAHO FALLS, Idaho) – The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has selected the Prometheus project to receive a Phase II award of $60 million over three years (subject to appropriations). Prometheus will leverage artificial intelligence (AI) to design, license, manufacture, construct, and operate nuclear reactors with human-in-the-loop workflows; integrate AI into nuclear fuel fabrication; and use AI for nuclear legacy document management. The team has raised more than $200 million in industry cost share and $30 million in industry capital to execute the project and help deliver nuclear energy faster, safer and cheaper.
Selections were announced at today’s Genesis Mission Summit in Washington, D.C., where leaders from national laboratories, industry, Congress, and executive branch departments and agencies convened to advance collaborative strategies for deploying AI-enabled scientific infrastructure.
“America’s nuclear future depends on our ability to move with greater urgency and drive down costs, while maintaining the uncompromising commitment to safety and technical rigor that defines our industry,” Idaho National Laboratory Director John Wagner said. “Prometheus brings together nuclear science and artificial intelligence to help us do exactly that.”
Prometheus is a massive 32‑partner collaborative effort between Idaho National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, and academia, along with more than 20 industry partners including X‑energy, TerraPower, and Oklo. Building on nine months of participation as a Genesis Mission kickstart seed team, Prometheus is now empowered to respond to the nation’s increasing demand for resilient, low-cost power. The initiative will address nuclear energy’s most pressing challenges: development timelines and costs.
“Oak Ridge brings deep expertise and capabilities in advanced manufacturing, high-performance computing, and nuclear energy science and technologies, which are essential to developing AI-enabled nuclear systems,” said Joe Hoagland, Oak Ridge’s associate laboratory director for the Fusion and Fission Energy and Science directorate. “Prometheus will allow us to combine these strengths with our experience in nuclear licensing and operations to create a unified development pipeline that lowers barriers and enables faster innovation across the nuclear sector.”
“Argonne’s leadership in AI, digital twins and computational science positions us to advance the core technologies that make Prometheus possible,” said Kirsten Laurin-Kovitz, Argonne’s associate laboratory director for Nuclear Technologies and National Security. “This collaboration demonstrates how national laboratories can combine distinct capabilities to create a transformative platform that reshapes what is achievable for U.S. nuclear energy.”
“Sandia National Laboratories plays a key role in Prometheus through its nuclear energy safety and security test beds, contributing essential national security expertise to a project designed to accelerate the deployment of safe, affordable nuclear energy,” said Toby Townsend, Sandia’s associate laboratories director for Deterrence, Science and Energy. “At a national scale, Prometheus will help us meet surging electricity demand while supporting the nation’s strategic technological leadership.”
In March, DOE released the Genesis Mission request for applications, inviting teams to apply for smaller scale Phase I awards and larger scale Phase II awards. The request to accelerate scientific discovery research and development workflows using novel AI models and frameworks aimed to identify promising pathways toward transformative scientific capabilities while establishing a foundation for investment and scale. The Prometheus project is the first Phase II award announced under the Genesis Mission.
INL also received Phase I funding to develop an AI-driven framework for critical mineral discovery and recovery from unconventional sources. The GeoFinder AI project includes collaborators from Boise State, Mississippi State and Idaho State universities.
Visit the Prometheus website and the Genesis Mission website to learn more.
NEWS MEDIA CONTACTS:
Addison Arave, 208-526-7369, Addison.Arave@inl.gov
Lori McNamara, 208-520-6066, Lori.Mcnamara@inl.gov
About Oak Ridge National Laboratory
UT-Battelle manages ORNL for DOE’s Office of Science, the single largest supporter of basic research in the physical sciences in the United States. DOE’s Office of Science is working to address some of the most pressing challenges of our time. For more information, visit energy.gov/science.
About Argonne National Laboratory
Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology by conducting leading-edge basic and applied research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.an
About Sandia National Laboratories
Sandia National Laboratories is a multimission laboratory operated by National Technology and Engineering Solutions of Sandia LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Honeywell International Inc., for the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration. Sandia Labs has major research and development responsibilities in nuclear deterrence, global security, defense, energy technologies and economic competitiveness, with main facilities in Albuquerque, New Mexico, and Livermore, California.
