Oak Ridge engineer says MoKE will test AI tools across DOE accelerator facilities
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Summary
Willem Blochlin, a senior research engineer at Oak Ridge National Laboratory's Spallation Neutron Source, said the MoKE project will demonstrate agentic AI workflows and shared machine tools across DOE accelerator labs, with Modcom and American Science Cloud providing model and compute support.
Willem Blochlin, a senior research engineer at the Spallation Neutron Source at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, said the MoKE project will demonstrate the use of artificial intelligence and machine tools across Department of Energy accelerator facilities to improve operational efficiency.
Asked to describe the project, Blochlin said, “Our goal is to demonstrate the use of AI and machine tools across the DOE accelerator facilities,” explaining that participating labs will run the same tools and share results so tools and methods can be applied broadly.
Blochlin described the demonstration’s technical approach as an “agentic workflow,” which allows operators to ask questions in plain English and have the system attempt to resolve them with knowledge of the accelerator. He offered a practical example: an operator could ask, “What happened overnight with this cavity?” and the system would correlate that event with temperature data and return an analysis without requiring manual spreadsheet work.
On how the project fits into the broader mission named in the interview, Blochlin said MoKE will use resources from that effort and work with partners. He identified Modcom, described in the interview as a model consortium that focuses on AI models, which would help build accelerator-physics models, and American Science Cloud, which would provide storage and compute for data and model training.
Blochlin said the participating teams meet regularly to determine needs and plan deployment across facilities. “We all meet regularly to discuss what the needs are and how this all will play out in the future,” he said.
The interview transcript contains inconsistent spellings for the project and mission names (see clarifying details). The discussion focused on tool demonstration, cross-lab collaboration, and technical support rather than on procurement, budget, or regulatory approvals. No formal actions, votes, or deadlines were recorded in the interview.
