£45M for the UK’s first AI supercomputer dedicated to fusion power

Cambridge, the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) collaborate to deploy the world's largest AI supercomputer dedicated to fusion power development.

Named 'Sunrise', a 1.4MW AI Supercomputer funded by DESNZ is primed to be one of the UK's largest AI supercomputers and the largest supercomputer in the world working to create fusion power.

Dr Paul Calleja, Director of the Cambridge Research Computing Service, said: "Cambridge is proud to be working with UKAEA, Dell, AMD and StackHPC, a UK AI software SME, to co-design, deliver and operate Sunrise the UK's latest GPU accelerated scientific AI supercomputer.

Sunrise builds on our long-established collaboration with UKAEA also leveraging Cambridge's leadership class national supercomputing and sovereign AI portfolio. Sunrise is an important first step in the UK's bold vision to strengthen its sovereign scientific computing capability, accelerate fusion research, and lay the foundations for the Culham AI Growth Zone."

Lord Vallance, Minister for Science, Innovation, Research and Nuclear, said: "We can be proud that Britain will lead the way on research, innovation and skills for a future of limitless fusion energy. By backing our fusion industry, we are not only securing our future energy independence, but from innovation and research to engineers, we are also providing the skilled clean energy jobs of the future for British people."

With plans to power up in June, this is a large-scale simulation and the first phase of the Culham AIGZ development plan. Project partners include the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), UKAEA, the University of Cambridge, Dell Technologies, Intel, AMD, and WEKA.

Fusion energy on the grid by 2040s

The University of Cambridge's long-term collaboration with UKAEA and DESNZ will provide advanced AI and simulation capability essential to drive UKAEA's moonshot mission to put clean, green fusion energy on the UK power grid in the 2040's. It will focus on key challenges in fusion energy, such as plasma turbulence, materials development and tritium fuel breeding.

Cambridge plays a significant role in DSIT's National AI Service "AIRR" and UKRI's new National Computer centre programmes, and will help integrate the new UKAEA fusion system into this wider UKRI and DSIT computer and AI ecosystem.

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