A company that delves deep into AI is in love with nuclear power with its promise of electricity 24/7. Meta, Google and Microsoft all do business with startups or reactor operators. But does the nuclear industry like AI?
Yes, there’s a warning.
No one is suggesting that AI operate reactors, but the utility company is told TechCrunch by Nuclear co-founder and CEO Bradley Fox.
Fox and Gerold Vincent have started a nuclear weapon to capitalize on their benefits. The company says the AI tools are used in more than 65 nuclear reactors around the world.
Recently, they raised a $10.5 million Series A round led by Blue Bear Capital with participation from AZ-VC, Nucleation Capital and SJF Ventures.
The nuclear started when the founder worked at the Palo Verde Nuclear Power Plant just west of Phoenix. They were experimenting with ways to streamline various repetitive tasks first from a data science perspective, using more advanced AI models.
The other reactors quickly caught their attention, Fox said. “Can you help me do the same thing you do for Palo Verde?” they asked him.
TechCrunch Events
San Francisco
|
October 27th-29th, 2025
That interest coincided with the community pandemic. “We both got a bit boring after work,” Fox said. “We’re, let’s work on the startup.”
Nuclear developed a model trained in terms specific to the nuclear industry. Startups can train custom models for utilities and power providers that require it. It also helps reactors set up hardware on the site when security protocols are needed while the software is running in the cloud.
Startup software can generate routine documentation for reactor employees to review and sign off.
“Now, most AI (Nuclear Regulation Authority) in the industry sees it as a tool. This is the same way you use Excel, Mathematica, or some kind of engineering software,” says Fox. “Responsibility is always with people.”
Nuclear reactor operators can set thresholds to the amount that will be automated, depending on the level of comfort and how well the model can handle the problem.
“If you don’t know the model, or you don’t know the model based on the settings you choose, you’ll send it back to the right person and get a double check,” Fox said. “We tell customers, ‘Think about this as a junior employee.’
