Microsoft is taking its tech to a major U.S. national lab to speed up nuclear permitting, further integrating artificial intelligence into the nuclear energy industry.

Microsoft and the Idaho National Laboratory announced a collaboration on Wednesday to use AI to streamline the permitting and licensing process for new nuclear facilities. 

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The partnership, which is funded by the Department of Energy’s Office of Nuclear Energy, will use Microsoft’s AI capabilities to generate standard reports required in licensing applications, such as engineering and safety analysis reports. 

Generating these reports is typically considered quite time-consuming, as it requires extensive safety information and language. 

Microsoft’s technology, built with Azure AI services, will not perform any analysis on these documents, but has been trained to automate the process of constructing such licensing documents before they are verified by human staff. 

To do this, the AI will utilize information from past successful permitting applications and relevant studies. 

INL hopes to use the tool for a wide range of nuclear energy-related licensing, including upgrades to reactors or completely new large reactors. The lab has also said it believes it can streamline the licensing process for advanced reactors, such as small modular reactors. 

“AI holds significant potential to accelerate the process to design, license, and deploy new nuclear energy for the nation’s increasing energy needs,” said Chris Ritter, division director of Scientific Computing and AI at the national lab. “INL looks forward to early research to evaluate the applicability of generative AI in the nuclear licensing space.”

Microsoft has sought to use AI to support nuclear power advancements as the technology drives soaring energy demand. 

The major technology company has partnered with utility Constellation Energy to restart Unit 1 of Pennsylvania’s decommissioned Three Mile Island facility. 

Constellation CEO Joe Dominguez revealed in late June that the company plans to use Microsoft’s AI to streamline the plant’s operations, such as monitoring ongoing and future maintenance. Constellation intends to use the same AI capabilities across all its other nuclear facilities.

The industry push to use AI to assist nuclear energy can also be traced back to last fall, when California’s only operating nuclear power plant, Diablo Canyon, said it was also jumping on board. 

Operator Pacific Gas & Electric Co. said in November that it would use AI systems to streamline licensing and regulatory planning for the facility. The company suggested at the time that AI could eventually be used for additional tasks such as maintenance scheduling. 

Some nuclear energy experts have suggested that using AI this way could lead to the technology being used for actual operational tasks. 

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Katya Le Blanc, a human factors scientist with the INL, previously told the Washington Examiner that this would be a “natural progression” for the two industries. 

“If you look at how AI is used in other industries for scheduling or these data-driven approaches, there aren’t– it’s not that hugest step,” Le Blanc said.