So, what are we
doing with AI?

The AI Team brings together representatives from the different entities of Orano to coordinate and accelerate artificial intelligence projects within the group. Because there are more and more AI initiatives, the AI Team helps to maintain consistency, share experiences and advance projects that create genuine value for our business units. Each month, the team meets to share use cases, identify business unit needs and collectively decide which projects to accelerate.

We will make artificial intelligence a collective strength by mastering it and controlling its risks and limitations. The various educational initiatives organized on our sites, such as the Data/AI Tour and AI workshop, aim to demystify artificial intelligence and help employees understand how it can be used. While the deployment of AI is inevitable, it should be used with clarity and critical analysis.

At Orano, artificial intelligence is not a technological issue: it is a driver of industrial performance. The challenge is simple: to use AI to optimize our processes, improve the efficiency of our teams and create more value for our business units. AI should augment the work of employees, not replace them. By automating certain repetitive tasks, AI saves time to focus on what creates the most value: analysis, decision-making and business unit expertise. You could say AI is turning into a kind of smart assistant who works to serve the teams.

Our artificial intelligence roadmap is currently being rolled out. It is based on concrete drivers: identification of our business unit priorities, cultural integration and change support for teams, development of our technological foundation and its adoption. We want to encourage an AI mindset among employees so that everyone can be involved in improving their day-to-day work. The goal is to make AI a driver of transformation that will serve all of Orano’s business units.

These fun and educational workshops are designed to familiarize people with artificial intelligence, helping managers and employees better understand the impact and benefits of AI in their day-to-day professional lives. More than 750 of our colleagues have already been trained on AI, allowing us to create an initial overview map of AI uses and identify the expectations of participants. The message is clear: we don’t need to be wary of AI if we control it and use it intelligently and wisely.

DEDALE introduces artificial intelligence into the design tools of nuclear facilities for Orano Projets engineers. The aim is twofold: to limit iterations between design and approval engineers, and to optimize building construction costs. This AI model, which learns from simulation data, can be integrated into engineering tools (3D CAD) and, eventually, into the design studies of the facilities for the Aval du Futur project.

In an effort to achieve operational excellence, artificial intelligence has been used to accelerate the design of mining blocks. An algorithm known as Well-E has been developed to integrate geological data and automatically generate several design proposals. The tool has been adapted to Kazakhstan by the KATCO teams and approved by the block designers. It reduces computation time from one to two weeks to around one day, while testing several reproducible solutions. This allows engineers to identify the optimal design more quickly and manage reserves more effectively.