Idaho National Laboratory

Rule Changes

Primary site for reactor construction and rule development

The Nuclear Regulatory Commission finalized a rule on October 22 that lets reactor applicants reuse analyses and test data from projects already authorized by the Energy or Defense departments. The agency targets about 18 months for a first-of-a-kind review and 12 months for later applications.

Updated Oct 23

New Capabilities

As of September 2026: Lead on the DeepLynx data and control platform used in the demonstration

Engineers at Purdue University and Idaho National Laboratory remotely adjusted the power of a working research reactor in real time, without anyone touching a control rod on site. The demonstration used an automatic digital control loop, then a reinforcement learning model, linking high-performance computers in Idaho, the reactor in Indiana, and a Microsoft Azure cloud in Virginia.

Updated Sep 24