SHINE will lead an AI project to design better nuclear fuel recycling, and join Prometheus, a national consortium bringing AI to nuclear energy at large.

JANESVILLE, Wis., Aug. 4, 2026 /PRNewswire/ — SHINE, a fusion energy company with a platform expanding into nuclear fuel recycling, has been selected for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission, the administration’s historic, more-than-$5-billion national initiative to double America’s scientific output through AI. A fusion energy company developing technology to recycle used nuclear fuel, SHINE will play two roles in the initiative: leading one project and contributing to another.

Leading: an AI tool to design better recycling

SHINE is the prime recipient on “AI-Guided Fuel Cycle Facility Optimization,” a Phase I project with Argonne National Laboratory as its technical partner. The goal is an AI-enabled workflow that helps engineers design better fuel recycling processes — one that weighs performance, product quality, and waste together, automatically and with a clear record of how each tradeoff was made, instead of evaluating them one at a time.

The United States holds roughly 95,000 metric tons of used nuclear fuel and SHINE is building the technology to recycle it. Better process design means recovering more usable material from that stockpile. The project builds on two tools Argonne has spent decades refining — AMUSE, which models the chemistry of separating used fuel, and ARTEMIS, which models how a full recycling facility fits together. It adds a new AI layer, co-developed with Argonne over the course of the project, that lets engineers explore far more design options and identify the strongest ones.

Supporting: the Prometheus national consortium

SHINE is also joining Prometheus, a Phase II Genesis Mission project led by Idaho National Laboratory that brings the national labs and industry together to apply AI across nuclear energy. SHINE will contribute data from its recycling work and will gain early access to the tools Prometheus develops for use in its own recycling program.

Together, these two projects place SHINE on both sides of the same challenge: leading the design of better recycling processes today, and helping build the national AI platform that will help speed nuclear deployment more broadly.

SHINE’s recycling technology

SHINE is building toward a commercial pilot for recycling used nuclear fuel, using the same process chemistry already proven at Chrysalis, its medical isotope facility. Chrysalis has also completed the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s full operating license review, the same regulatory pathway a recycling facility will follow. That’s the foundation the Genesis Mission award builds on: an AI layer added to a program already grounded in demonstrated chemistry, engineering, and regulatory experience.

“Energy and AI are tied together. Advanced technology needs abundant, affordable power, and AI is helping us improve the systems that can provide it, starting with the chemistry behind nuclear fuel recycling,” said Greg Piefer, founder and CEO of SHINE. “Our Genesis Mission Project will attempt to bring AI technology into our fuel recycling technology. It’s our belief we can accelerate progress by combining our commercial radiochemistry operational data with the best of AI technology.”

This project runs over the coming months. If successful, the same method could be applied across more of the recycling process.

About the Genesis Mission

The Genesis Mission is a historic national initiative led by the U.S. Department of Energy, which is building the world’s most powerful integrated science discovery platform. By uniting government, industry, academia, and philanthropy, it is accelerating breakthroughs in energy, scientific discovery, and national security through a new platform that combines AI, supercomputing, quantum systems, and advanced scientific instruments.

The goal of the Phase I RFA awards is to identify promising pathways toward transformative scientific capabilities and establish a foundation for future investment and scale. Project teams will design and demonstrate research workflows that integrate AI with scientific investigation, while rigorously evaluating whether those approaches can accelerate discovery, improve predictive capabilities, enhance experimentation, or generate new scientific insights.

About Argonne National Laboratory

Argonne National Laboratory seeks solutions to pressing national problems in science and technology by conducting leading-edge basic and applied research in virtually every scientific discipline. Argonne is managed by UChicago Argonne, LLC for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science.

About SHINE

SHINE is a fusion energy company headquartered in Janesville, Wisconsin. We are leading the transition to the fusion economy through a technology platform that supplies critical products to global markets, each one funding the next.

Today, we supply defense and research customers with neutron-based testing. Our medical radioisotopes diagnose heart disease and treat cancer, and the world’s largest commercial-scale medical isotope facility is now under construction. We are developing the technology to recycle used nuclear fuel, targeting a commercial pilot to draw down the 95,000 metric tons that have accumulated in the United States. Our long-term purpose is to put fusion energy on the grid. Learn more at www.shinefusion.com.

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SOURCE SHINE Technologies, LLC