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California's last nuclear power plant has turned to AI to solve its big paperwork problem

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.
Why it matters

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.

Business Insider Published by John Kell
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