Palantir jumps aboard tech-nuclear bandwagon with software deal

The AI boom needs power, and startup The Nuclear Company aims to help build

Palantir has become the latest tech company to jump on the nuclear power bandwagon - not by making a datacenter deal like Microsoft or Amazon, mind you, but by providing its data analytics software to a startup aiming to help build nuclear plants faster and cheaper.

The data analytics software provider announced a deal with The Nuclear Company (TNC) to build a so-called Nuclear Operating System (NOS) designed to provide data-driven visibility into power-plant construction.

Most El Reg readers are likely familiar with Palantir, which has gained a lot of attention for its gung ho pro-America rhetoric and for its recent spate of US government contract wins under the second Trump administration.

TNC is a bit more obscure. 

The biz was founded in 2023 with the goal of serving as a project management company for new nuclear power projects. Rather than building and managing its own fleet of nuclear power plants, which has generally been the domain of local energy providers, TNC hopes to get investments from partner companies looking to build their own "fleet-scale" nuclear power plants. Unlike other startups focused on new designs, like small modular reactors, TNC aims to use existing designs and focus on sites that already have permits or licenses to operate.

The idea behind that strategy, TNC said, is to speed up the nuclear power development process, reduce costs, and make projects more predictable. This century, nuclear buildouts in the US dropped to a crawl and have been plagued by long delays and cost overruns, but there's been a new burst of interest as hyperscalers race to build power-hungry datacenters for their AI buildouts. With that mini boomlet on the horizon, the startup has raised $70 million from a variety of backers, including a $53 million round earlier this year led by defense-focused venture capital firm Eclipse Ventures, as per Pitchbook. 

Palantir's role is to help develop NOS to "transform the construction of nuclear reactors into a data-driven, predictable process" that will allow TNC "to build plants faster and safer for less." Palantir engineers will be embedded within TNC to work on the project. 

According to the companies' statement, NOS will be able to monitor multiple aspects of a nuclear power project, from supply chains and calendars to regulatory assurance and on-site issues, all in real time. 

No timeline for the deployment of such software was mentioned in the press release. Additionally, it's unclear whether TNC has even managed to begin a single nuclear power project - its website doesn't indicate that anything but solicitations have been sent out to gauge contractor interest. The company said it wants to deploy 6 GW of nuclear power in its first round of projects, but nothing suggests those projects have gone beyond the twinkle-in-eye stage.

While this may be a different sort of nuclear investment than the kind made by Amazon, Microsoft, and the like of late, Palantir's deal is still a case of a big partnership with an atomic energy firm that has yet to prove it's more than just hype.

We reached out to both Palantir and The Nuclear Company with questions, but haven't heard back. ®