Valar Atomics powers Nvidia Blackwell chip with Utah test reactor in first-of-its-kind demonstration
By
Judith Murphy
Summary
Valar Atomics successfully powered an Nvidia Blackwell chip (RTX Spark desktop machine) using electricity from its Ward 250 helium-cooled test reactor in Emery County, Utah, on July 1. This marks the first time a next-generation American reactor has powered an AI chip. The demonstration was modest — just enough electricity from a fission reaction to briefly host a live website — but carries significant symbolic weight for the intersection of nuclear energy and AI computing.
Source
bskyValar Atomics powers Nvidia Blackwell chip with Utah test reactor in first-of-its-kind demonstrationstartupfortune.comKey quotes
· 3 pulledValar Atomics ran an Nvidia Blackwell chip on electricity from its Ward 250 reactor in Emery County, Utah, on July 1, marking the first time a next-generation American reactor has powered an AI chip.
The demonstration itself was modest. Valar connected an Nvidia RTX Spark desktop machine built on Blackwell architecture to power drawn from Ward 250, its helium-cooled test reactor, and used it to briefly host a live website.
No racks of GPUs, no data center, just enough electricity from a fission reaction to prove the circuit works. But the symbolism is what matters here, and Nvidia knows it.
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