According to Wired, Valar Atomics announced Monday that it achieved nuclear criticality, claiming to be the first startup ever to reach this fundamental nuclear milestone. The El Segundo, California-based company just secured a massive $130 million funding round backed by notable investors including Palmer Luckey and Palantir CTO Shyam Sankar. Valar hit this breakthrough as part of a special Department of Energy pilot program aiming to get at least three startups to criticality by July 4, 2025. The program emerged from an executive order signed by President Donald Trump in May that’s dramatically accelerated nuclear regulation. Company founder Isaiah Taylor called zero power criticality “a reactor’s first heartbeat” and marked it as the dawn of a new era in American nuclear engineering.
What criticality actually means
So what exactly is criticality? Basically, it’s when a nuclear reactor sustains a chain reaction – that moment when enriched nuclear fuel releases neutrons that hit other atoms, causing them to split and release more neutrons in a self-sustaining process. Adam Stein from the Breakthrough Institute gives a great domino analogy: if dominoes are spaced too far apart, the chain reaction stops, but spaced just right, you get the sustained reaction you’re looking for. Here’s the thing though – this was “cold criticality” or “zero-power criticality,” meaning it’s not actually generating heat or power yet. It’s more like proving the physics works before you scale up to actual energy production.
The government partnership angle
What’s really interesting here is how much this achievement relied on government infrastructure. Valar didn’t reach criticality with their own reactor – they used a hybrid system combining their fuel and technology with structural components from Los Alamos National Laboratory. That’s one of the DOE’s premier R&D labs, and they’d already done separate fuel tests last year using similar fuel. This whole accelerated timeline is only possible because of that special DOE program that’s basically fast-tracking nuclear innovation. When you’re dealing with industrial-grade technology that requires this level of precision and safety, having access to established research facilities makes all the difference. It’s the kind of partnership that companies relying on robust industrial computing systems understand well – sometimes you need proven infrastructure to validate new approaches.
Why this matters beyond the hype
Look, nuclear startups have been popping up everywhere lately, but actually achieving criticality is the first real proof that your design isn’t just theoretical. For the energy sector, this could signal that smaller, more agile companies might actually deliver on nuclear innovation faster than the traditional players. But let’s be real – cold criticality is just step one. The hard part comes next: scaling to actual power generation, dealing with heat management, and proving commercial viability. Still, with $130 million in fresh funding and government backing, Valar has the resources to push forward. The question is whether this accelerated approach can maintain safety while delivering results. If they succeed, it could reshape how we think about nuclear energy development in America.
