Three U.S.-U.K. partnerships accelerating fusion commercialization

At the start of U.K. Fusion Week on Monday, three partnerships were announced that bring together fusion energy research and development efforts across the United States and the United Kingdom.

State partnership: Tennessee and the U.K. announced a strengthened partnership to explore cooperation research, supply chains, regulation, and other activities supporting the development of fusion energy.

According to the Tennessee Valley Authority, this collaboration builds on the U.K. Infinity Fusion Consortium, a partnership between Tennessee-based Type One Energy, U.K.-based Tokamak Energy, and Texas-based AECOM that was announced in May.

"Fusion is moving out of the laboratory and into the market, and Tennessee is ready-made to lead the way," said Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee. "Our strong supply chains, skilled workforce, reliable regulatory framework, and partnerships with Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Tennessee Valley Authority position our state to make commercial fusion a reality. We look forward to strengthening our partnership with the United Kingdom to bring this clean, abundant source of energy to market faster."

The partners will explore strengthening fusion supply chains and advanced manufacturing, development of the fusion fuel cycle, scientific and technical exchange among participating facilities, engagement among industrial partners on commercial grid connection, workforce development, licensing and safety frameworks, and joint conferences that support global fusion sector growth.

"This powerful, bilateral, public-private partnership weaves together the essential threads of the fusion value chain," said Type One CEO Christofer Mowry.

Multiplying resources: The U.K. Atomic Energy Authority and Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory have signed a joint declaration of intent to explore linking two new computing systems to allow fusion researchers to share resources and optimize computing methods, aiming to speed up fusion energy research.

In January, PPPL announced Simulation, Technology and Experiment Leveraging Learning-Accelerated Research (STELLAR-AI), an integrated system of central processing units, graphics processing units, and quantum processing units in a configuration specifically designed for fusion research. The U.K. government announced in March that it would be funding a fusion-focused supercomputer named Sunrise at the UKAEA.

Since the institutions are exploring the same fusion approach-the National Spherical Torus Experiment-Upgrade at PPPL and the Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak Upgrade at UKAEA are both spherical tokamaks-researchers would benefit from sharing experimental data for training AI, for which quantity and quality of data is a critical component of model development.

"Our goal is to let models and experiments move freely between the two systems," said Shantenu Jha, head of computational sciences at PPPL. "We will turn a collection of supercomputers into a single engine for fusion discovery."

PPPL and the UKAEA conducted a workshop to lay out the steps a federation would require. Those include building a shared data pipeline, joint digital twin development, and a framework for moving computing jobs between platforms so researchers can run their models on the machine best suited for the task.

Research to grid: The University of Birmingham in England and the Electric Power Research Institute have announced a collaboration to develop fusion energy technologies though the university's FURESHMA (Fusion Reactor Shielding Materials) program, which aims to test boride and carbide shielding materials for use in a fusion power plant.

According to the university, the collaboration will support technology transfer and accelerate the path from laboratory discoveries to real-world energy applications.

"Through FURESHMA, EPRI and the University of Birmingham can connect advanced materials research with the needs of future plant developers and operators, strengthen international knowledge exchange, and help establish a sound technical foundation for fusion deployment," said Steve Chengelis, EPRI vice president for nuclear development and fusion.

Data generated through the project will be made openly available.

EPRI had an existing relationship with the university, including funding a studentship on vanadium alloy welds for fusion through the FURESHMA program.