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Research & Applications

NN Asks: How can university faculty help the nuclear industry meet GenAI-era energy demands?

November 20, 2025, 9:31AMNuclear NewsPavel Tsvetkov

Pavel Tsvetkov

This question is the one that we ask and answer every day. University faculty are uniquely positioned to bridge the gap between generative AI capabilities and the nuclear industry’s evolving energy challenges. By leveraging our expertise in research, education, and collaboration, faculty can drive advancements in nuclear technology, cultivate a skilled workforce, and foster public and industry support.

There is no industry without a skilled, well-educated workforce. At Texas A&M’s Department of Nuclear Engineering, we nurture our students through a very comprehensive and rigorous nuclear engineering program, which has a critical impact on the nuclear industry as those students enter the workforce. As nuclear industry demands grow, so too our student population is growing. We are approaching 200 graduate students and 400 undergraduate students in our programs.

We are educators, but at universities we do a lot more that is paramount to the nuclear industry—both today and in the future—to support and ensure that nuclear energy will remain a sustainable energy source. We conduct forward-looking and exploratory high-risk research that will define the nuclear industry of tomorrow as well as foundational, credibility-assuring confirmatory research that supports today’s operating nuclear power plants and responds to licensing needs. This is a very synergistic experiential component of our students’ education experiences; it is also our answer to industry questions and demands in the era of GenAI.

The field has 120-plus nuclear vendors at various stages of technology development and deployment. Universities develop technical solutions to answer industry needs, and we ensure the credibility of solutions and de-risk development pathways in our closely integrated collaboration with our industry partners. This is important for both the current nuclear industry as well as the emerging advanced nuclear industry. The technologies that we test and de-risk both ensure the nuclear industry meets and responds to GenAI-era energy demands and takes advantage of emerging GenAI tools in accelerating and expanding developments in nuclear technologies.

University labs are incubators for innovation. By integrating GenAI into reactor modeling, safeguards analysis, and fuel cycle advancements, faculty can push the boundaries of what’s possible. Imagine AI agents that co-design control systems, predict material degradation, or simulate inspection workflows in real time. Our answer as university faculty is in our students and in our collaborative efforts with the nuclear industry. This is in our broad-range, in-depth research efforts that span all aspects of nuclear engineering. We invite students to join and learn so that they can join industry teams, and we invite our industry partners to explore and find solutions that may otherwise appear out of reach or too risky. Working together to find the answers makes this an exciting time for nuclear.


Pavel Tsvetkov (tsvetkov@tamu.edu) is a professor of nuclear engineering and a director of the graduate program in the Department of Nuclear Engineering at Texas A&M University.

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