Tashkent, Uzbekistan (UzDaily.uz) — A team from Uzbekistan presented a concept for a future city at the Global HackAtom final, where nuclear power was designed to provide not only electricity but also support desalination plants, industry and a nuclear medicine centre.
Participants were tasked with planning the city’s development through 2050, with just 20 hours to develop their projects and prepare for the final presentation. Ilya Perepelkin, mentor of Uzbekistan’s Synthesis team, spoke about the competition and the solutions developed by the students.
The final of the international Global HackAtom student championship took place on 14–15 September in Yekaterinburg as part of the International Youth Festival. The event brought together more than 80 winners of national competitions from 15 countries in Asia, Europe, Africa and Latin America. Rosatom has organised the championship for the second consecutive year.
Before the assignment
Several days before the final, participants visited the Beloyarsk Nuclear Power Plant and its satellite city, Zarechny. At the plant, they visited a power unit equipped with the BN-800 reactor.
The Uzbek students had previously been familiar with the research reactor at the Institute of Nuclear Physics of the Academy of Sciences of Uzbekistan. The visit allowed them to see an industrial power unit of a new generation and a city whose life is directly connected with the operation of a nuclear power plant.
“By the start of the hackathon, we already had experience communicating with the other teams. The tours gave participants a chance to get acquainted and learn more about one another. We discussed what topics the teams had considered at the national stages and what they had brought to the final,” Perepelkin recalled.
He said there was some nervousness before the start about what the assignment would be and whether the team would be able to handle it. Participants had their assumptions, but no one knew the exact topic.
After visiting Zarechny, participants assumed that the final assignment could involve a nuclear-powered city, but the specific requirements were revealed only when the hackathon began. The city had to be located on an ocean coast in a warm climate and seismically active zone. Its development scenario began in 2027 and extended through 2050.
A city of integrated technologies
The team decided not to limit the project to electricity generation. The students explored other potential uses of a nuclear power plant, including water desalination, industrial development and other applications.
“We viewed the nuclear power plant as an engine of the city’s economy. We included water desalination because, under the assignment, the plant had to be located on the ocean coast. We also provided for a nuclear medicine centre. In our concept, petrochemical production was supposed to use heat from the nuclear power plant. We considered producing plastic using this heat. The project turned out to be comprehensive, with all its elements interconnected,” Perepelkin said.
The team proposed dividing the city’s development into stages linked to its evolution. At the initial stage, small modular reactors were to meet the first demand for electricity, operate desalination plants and support social infrastructure.
As the city grew and new industries emerged, the construction of a large power unit was envisaged.
This approach required the team to calculate generating capacity not separately from the city but based on which facilities would be developed at each stage and how much energy they would require. Perepelkin described the concept as a “city of integrated technologies.”
One of its principles was to provide the city with its own electricity and fresh water, while industrial development was also linked to the production of goods for export.
One task, different approaches
At the international final, participants met teams with significantly different backgrounds. The contestants included not only future nuclear industry specialists but also students from biological and IT fields. Their different professional experience influenced how they approached the same assignment.
One of the projects that stood out was “Nuclear Nomad” by a team from Kyrgyzstan, which proposed a concept for an autonomous floating nuclear city. The project took third place in the championship.
For the Uzbek students, the final provided an opportunity to compare their engineering approach with solutions developed by participants from other countries and academic fields. While many initial assumptions may be similar within a single university or education system, the international format showed how differently teams can approach the same task and set priorities.
20 hours and an independent presentation
The concept had to be turned into a completed presentation within 20 hours. The students divided the tasks among themselves, searched for information, carried out calculations and then combined the individual components into a single project. They completed the work almost by the deadline.
According to Perepelkin, almost none of the team members slept during that time.
Every decision affected the subsequent work. The selected generating capacity determined the possibilities for infrastructure and industry, while plans for developing enterprises, in turn, changed the city’s future energy demand.
The students presented their project to a jury that included representatives of the Beloyarsk Nuclear Power Plant, transport group FESCO and Energia Razvitiya. In a short period, they had to highlight the key elements of their work and explain why the team had chosen those particular solutions.
Perepelkin said the need to make decisions independently and take responsibility for them was one of the main outcomes of participating in the championship.
“An important task was to organise our thoughts. We had to quickly move from an idea to action and make a decision that would affect the entire project. I think this will help students make difficult decisions in the future. Everyone worked on their own part of the project. In my view, this developed independence, the ability to verify information and carry out calculations,” Perepelkin said.
It would hardly be possible to fully design a real city intended to develop over decades within a single day, but the time was enough to show how young specialists and students from different countries envision a nuclear-powered city of the future.
In this sense, Global HackAtom was not only a competition of ideas but also a model of a generation that will enter the industry in the coming years. The event brought together different cultural and educational backgrounds, while participants shared a willingness to combine technologies, think in terms of decades and propose ambitious solutions.
