Weekly Dose of Optimism #198
Brief
In energy and defense, Valar Atomics’ Ward 250 reactor in Emery County, Utah went critical ahead of the U.S. 250th birthday, with founder Isaiah Taylor targeting power operations by July 4, 2026 and a strategy to mass‑print reactors to slash energy costs ~10×. Anduril moved from its April 2024 prototype award to a June 2026 production contract for its FQ‑44 “Fury” in the Air Force’s CCA program — the fastest such transition in over 50 years — with the Air Force seeking more than 150 FQ‑44s by the end of the decade (General Atomics secured the other production contract). Finally, Reindustrialize 3.0 in Detroit showcased a shift from advocacy to execution: panels drilled into tradeoffs for automation, integration, and workforce, while companies such as Standard Nuclear filed an S‑1 and investors like Not Boring Capital signaled continued capital flows into on‑shoring and heavy manufacturing.
Why it matters
Midjourney announced Midjourney Medical and the Midjourney Scanner: a whole‑body “Ultrasonic CT” that uses a ring of underwater ultrasonic sensors, aims for a ≤60‑second scan that generates terabytes of waveform data and uses AI/compute to reconstruct millimeter‑scale 3D maps; the effort is partnered with Butterfly Network and is billed as the first of eight major Midjourney announcements in 2026.
Key details
- CZ Biohub and UC Berkeley (led by Holger Müller) published a Laser Phase Plate in Science and Nature Communications using a Fabry‑Perot cavity that bounces a laser ~10,000 times to reach ~100 million× the intensity of the Sun’s surface (the brightest continuous‑wave laser), dramatically improving contrast for cryo‑EM and enabling higher‑fidelity cryo‑ET reconstructions (moving beyond the ~10% of proteins seen when purified and <1% seen in situ).
- Valar Atomics’ Ward 250 reactor in Emery County, Utah went critical (June 2026 timeframe), making it the second new advanced reactor to go critical before the U.S. 250th birthday (July 4, 2026); founder Isaiah Taylor aims for power operations by July 4 and to mass‑print reactors to drive energy costs down ~10× compared with today.
- Anduril’s FQ‑44 “Fury” was selected in June 2026 as one of two production winners in the U.S. Air Force’s Collaborative Combat Aircraft (CCA) program — a transition from an April 2024 prototype award to production in ~2 years (the fastest fighter prototype‑to‑production in over 50 years); the Air Force wants more than 150 FQ‑44s by the end of the decade; General Atomics won the other contract.
- Reindustrialize 3.0 in Detroit emphasized execution over debate: Packy McCormick moderated panels with Micah Springut, Alexis Ohanian, Sam D’Amico, Justin Lopas and Adam Warmoth; industry momentum included Standard Nuclear filing an S‑1 and Not Boring Capital participating as an investor.