Their initial project won awards for impact and technology advancement at Microsoft’s annual Hackathon.
Yasir Arafat, CTO of Aalo Atomics, said: “So far, we have tackled three of the most impactful challenges in the nuclear industry – using AI to simplify, accelerate, and ultimately transform how complex energy systems are licensed, built and operated at scale.”
The work has involved using Microsoft’s Generative AI for Energy Permitting Solution Accelerator and is now expanding to include AI agents to create a “digital super-operator platform” which can turn “regulatory complexity into actionable intelligence, bringing us closer to building the clean-energy future, faster than ever before”.
Darryl Willis, Corporate Vice President Energy & Resources Industry at Microsoft, said: “Together, the team began developing AI agents that leverage rich internal and external datasets – like design data and risk models – to embed generative AI into Aalo’s workflows, boosting permitting speed and operational efficiency. We’re excited to scale these capabilities to help Aalo advance carbon-free, factory-built nuclear power.”
Aalo Atomics broke ground in August at a site in Idaho to start construction of its first experimental reactor, the Aalo-X. Aalo said it planned to complete construction and achieve criticality by 4 July 2026, the goal date set by the US Department of Energy for at least three test reactors to reach criticality under the programme to expedite the testing of advanced reactor designs it announced in June.
Aalo-X will be manufactured at Aalo’s pilot factory in Austin, Texas, before being transported to and installed at the INL site. The test reactor is the precursor to the Aalo Pod, a 50 MWe XMR (Extra Modular Reactor) power plant purpose-built for data centres – demand for which is increasing rapidly following the widespread adoption of AI. Each fully modular Aalo Pod will contain five factory-built, sodium-cooled, Aalo-1 reactors, using low-enriched uranium dioxide fuel. The company says it will be in commercial use by 2029.
Microsoft has, over the past two years, chosen nuclear as one prong of its strategy to secure reliable, carbon-free electricity to meet growing energy demand. It has signed long-term agreements including a 20-year power purchase agreement with Constellation Energy to restart the Crane Clean Energy Center, formerly known as the Three Mile Island Unit 1, in the USA and signed one of the first deals with fusion energy technology company Helion, through a long-term power purchase agreement.
