Pacific Gas and Electric has deployed an AI tool called Neutron at the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant to streamline the retrieval of millions of pages of regulatory documentation.
Key points
- PG&E partnered with startup Atomic Canyon to implement the first on-site generative AI tool at a U.S. nuclear power plant.
- The Neutron system, powered by Nvidia technology, consolidates billions of data points from six separate systems into a single searchable database.
- Atomic Canyon trained the model using 53 million pages of public data from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission and supercomputing resources at Oak Ridge National Laboratory.
- The tool reduced the documentation retrieval time for a safety valve investigation from 180 days to 40 days.
- Full deployment was completed in fall 2025, providing all 1,300 plant employees with AI-assisted access to over 9,000 operating and maintenance procedures.
This deployment demonstrates how generative AI can alleviate the massive administrative and regulatory burdens inherent in highly complex, safety-critical industries. By significantly accelerating document retrieval, the technology helps utilities manage aging infrastructure more efficiently while potentially lowering the barriers to building new energy facilities.