Palantir Technologies Inc. and The Nuclear Company, a startup focused on project development, announced a deal Thursday where Palantir will receive $100 million over five years, according to Bloomberg. The agreement aims to develop AI software for the nuclear industry, with the goal of constructing nuclear plants more efficiently than China.
Mike Gallagher, head of defense at Palantir Technologies Inc., stated that the US requires increased nuclear power to compete with China. Gallagher said, “The fact of the matter is we cannot win this strategic competition with China unless we revitalize our ability to build nuclear technology,” in an interview on Bloomberg Television.
Bloomberg reported that out of 61 nuclear power plants under construction globally, 26 are in Russia and 25 are in China. Currently, the US has no plants under construction. In the US, Vogtle Units 3 and 4 are the only two plants built in the last 30 years. Gallagher, a former US congressman, attributed the 15-year construction time to extensive regulation and the large volume of documentation required.
Jonathan Webb, Chief Executive Officer of The Nuclear Company, said that Palantir’s software is digitizing the paperwork required to construct the last plants, “so that when supply chain delays are happening, our teams on the front lines are aware of it.” Webb and Gallagher intend to streamline construction at the startup, with the aim of delivering electricity by the 2030s, despite having no plants currently under construction.
In May, executive orders signed by President Donald Trump called for 10 large-scale nuclear reactors to be under construction by 2030 and 400 gigawatts of total nuclear power by 2050, which would be over four times the country’s current atomic energy capacity. Webb stated, “We need to get back to building, because if we don’t build nuclear power plants, it’s China and Russia that are doing that.”
