Utility Dive: Nuclear power on a faster timeline is possible. Here is how utilities can make it work.

When SpaceX decided to manufacture its own rocket engines, write its own flight software and build its own launch infrastructure, the aerospace industry called it inefficient. Why duplicate what established suppliers already did well?

A decade later, the answer is obvious. Vertical integration gave SpaceX something the traditional defense contractor model could not: the ability to iterate fast, test under real conditions and fix problems without waiting on a supplier's schedule or a procurement cycle. Speed became a structural feature, not a project management achievement.

The team behind Applied Atomics lived that transformation from the inside. Now they are building the same way in nuclear.

The company's founding team worked at SpaceX during its formative years, building the infrastructure and systems that proved the vertical integration thesis at scale. Collectively they have designed, delivered and operated billions of dollars of complex technical infrastructure the same way: own the stack, compress the feedback loops, build safety in rather than bolt it on.

They did not come to the nuclear power industry to apply a theory. They came to apply a method they have already proven.