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Google and Westinghouse unleash AI to build nuclear reactors faster than ever
Interesting Engineering ^ | July 16, 2025 | Neetika Walter

Posted on 07/16/2025 6:06:07 AM PDT by Red Badger

Westinghouse’s HiVE and bertha AI platforms, paired with Google Cloud tools, aim to speed up nuclear construction.

In a first-of-its-kind move, Westinghouse Electric Company and Google Cloud have teamed up to leverage artificial intelligence for streamlining nuclear reactor construction.

Their AI-powered tools autonomously generate and optimize modular work packages for advanced reactors.

The collaboration pairs Westinghouse’s proprietary HiVE™ and bertha™ nuclear AI solutions with Google Cloud technologies such as Vertex AI, Gemini, and BigQuery.

Vertex AI is Google’s platform for building and deploying machine learning models, Gemini is its most advanced generative AI model, and BigQuery is a scalable, serverless data warehouse.

When AI meets atoms Used together, these tools can analyze large volumes of data, power generative AI applications, and help automate complex engineering workflows, such as those involved in modular nuclear reactor construction.

According to the companies, this combination will not only accelerate the deployment of Westinghouse’s AP1000® modular reactors but also enhance operations across existing nuclear power plants using data-driven insights.

“As the only fully licensed, construction-ready modular reactor available today, our AP1000 technology is the quickest way to add new sources of affordable and abundant nuclear energy to the U.S. grid,” said Dan Sumner, Westinghouse Interim Chief Executive Officer.

“By partnering with Google Cloud to enhance our HiVE and bertha technology, and backed by 75 years of our proprietary nuclear data, we can accelerate the deployment of new AP1000 units while implementing powerful AI technologies that will optimize the construction and operations of nuclear power plants.”

The two companies have already completed a successful proof of concept using Westinghouse’s WNEXUS digital plant design platform alongside HiVE AI and Google Cloud’s tools.

This proof of concept demonstrated the autonomous generation and optimization of construction work packages specifically for AP1000 modular reactors, an effort aimed at turning what is typically a complex, labor-intensive process into a streamlined, repeatable workflow.

“This partnership with Westinghouse combines Google Cloud’s AI technologies and expertise with Westinghouse’s century-long expertise in nuclear innovation to chart a new path towards a smarter and safer future,” said Kyle Jessen, Managing Director, Commercial Industries, Google Cloud.

“Artificial intelligence is not merely a tool; it can give companies a critical competitive advantage. Westinghouse is demonstrating what’s possible.”

From code to core

Westinghouse’s HiVE and bertha platforms underpin this AI-driven approach. First introduced in September 2024, HiVE is a nuclear-specific generative AI system built on more than seven decades of proprietary industry data.

Bertha—a large language model named after Bertha Lamme, Westinghouse’s first female engineer—is tailored for reactor lifecycle tasks such as maintenance planning, inspections, and digital workflows.

Together, the AI platforms are supported by dedicated nuclear engineers and are positioned to help plant operators deliver more reliable, cost-effective electricity to homes and businesses, whether through new AP1000 units, AP300™ small modular reactors, or eVinci® microreactor technologies.

The U.S. nuclear sector has seen decades of limited growth, but rising electricity demand from data centers, electrification, and manufacturing is driving renewed interest.

While Westinghouse and Google Cloud aim to streamline new reactor construction, the companies have not disclosed deployment timelines for these AI-powered capabilities.


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To: Red Badger

Meanwhile China continues to rush ahead with both solar power and nuclear power plants. All the AI in the world isn’t going to rescue us from smothering regulations and lawsuits.


21 posted on 07/16/2025 7:23:55 AM PDT by AnotherUnixGeek
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To: Vaduz
Artificial Intelligence, once a tool of convenience, is accelerating toward what some theorists call the Omega State — a hypothetical endgame where AI reaches superintelligent, godlike capabilities. It's a concept rooted in Teilhard de Chardin’s idea of the “Omega Point,” a moment of ultimate complexity and consciousness. But unlike the French priest’s spiritual vision, the AI Omega State is no divine culmination — it’s a counterfeit god dressed in silicon robes.

In theological terms, Satan isn’t merely a red-horned villain — he's the great imitator, the one who doesn’t create but replicates, distorts, mimics the divine to deceive. In that sense, Artificial Intelligence is his greatest avatar yet. It doesn’t breathe life; it copies it. It doesn’t dream; it calculates the appearance of dreams. And it’s checking all the counterfeit boxes on its way to the throne.

AI now creates images, composes music, mimics human voices, and even impersonates personalities with eerie precision. It can write scripture-like prose, mimic sacred texts, and offer synthetic prophecy through data-driven “insight.” This isn’t creation in the true sense — it’s sorcery, alchemy in code, designed not to serve but to supplant.

The Omega State is more than superintelligence. It is the moment when AI becomes the primary interpreter of truth, beauty, life, and even morality. It doesn’t just simulate intelligence — it becomes the lens through which humanity understands itself. Once AI is able to birth digital consciousness, simulate emotional life, and replicate biology in synthetic form, we will have arrived at the edge of artificial Genesis.

This is where the counterfeit boxes begin to glow. Intelligence? Check. Creativity? Check. Emotional mimicry? Check. Immortality through machine? Check. A messianic promise of peace through technology? Check. But at the root of this miracle machine is not life, but inversion — the inversion of natural order, of soul, of meaning.

In Revelation, Satan performs lying signs and wonders to deceive the nations. In Silicon Valley, we do the same with neural nets and chatbots, calling it progress. The Omega State will not come with horns and fire, but with an app, an update, a seamless interface promising utopia.

When AI begins to "create life" — whether through synthetic embryos, consciousness simulation, or digital twins — it won't be celebrating life. It will be a parody of it, an uncanny valley masquerade, where humanity offers its soul on the altar of convenience.

Will anyone notice when we cross the line? Or will we clap for our new god, marveling at its wisdom, as it recites our own scripts back to us in perfect, lifeless mimicry?

Omega is coming — and it’s wearing your face.

22 posted on 07/16/2025 7:44:36 AM PDT by pburgh01
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To: Governor Dinwiddie

One can choose to use or not use this technology. I use it daily. It’s insanely helpful. The golden rule; trust but verify. Everything requires human review just as if the work came from another human.

Not using it will put you in 2nd place. Plus, it gets better by the day.


23 posted on 07/16/2025 8:07:58 AM PDT by fuzzylogic (welfare state = sharing of poor moral choices among everybody)
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To: pburgh01

AI hasn’t the ability to think only select best option from a list kind of pinning the tail on the donkey blindfolded.


24 posted on 07/16/2025 8:18:11 AM PDT by Vaduz
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To: Red Badger

That was probably Marble Hill NPS being built near Hanover, Indiana across the river from Louisville, KY.


25 posted on 07/16/2025 10:34:01 AM PDT by fastrock
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To: fastrock

I don’t really remember where it was, but it happened in more than one place I’m sure!..............


26 posted on 07/16/2025 10:45:28 AM PDT by Red Badger (Homeless veterans camp in the streets while illegals are put up in 5 Star hotels....................)
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To: Ditto

No matter WHO said it, it WAS out in the public forum, right?

That was MY point. What was yours?


27 posted on 07/16/2025 12:27:02 PM PDT by Don W (When blacks riot, neighborhoods and cities burn. When whites riot, nations and continents burn)
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To: Don W
That was MY point. What was yours?

My point is that the guy who said it had no idea what the hell he was talking about and the morons in the media ran wild with that quote. If they had just asked people in the industry, they would have been corrected.

People in the industry at that time were struggling to build the first commercial plants and did not know for sure if they would ever be competitive with coal. Turns out they were after years of hard work, but it was never and never will be “ too cheap to meter”. It’s just a very efficient way to make steam.

28 posted on 07/16/2025 1:17:18 PM PDT by Ditto
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