The government has announced £45 million for a 1.4MW mission-focused supercomputer named ‘Sunrise'.

The investment is a first step in establishing the country’s first AI Growth Zone at the UK Atomic Energy Authority’s (UKAEA) Culham Campus in Oxfordshire.

Sunrise is anticipated to begin operation in June and is set to be the world’s most powerful AI supercomputer dedicated to fusion energy.  

It will focus on key fusion energy challenges in areas such as plasma turbulence, materials development and tritium fuel breeding, while at the same time, delivering spillover benefits to other clean energy technologies and the UK’s broader net zero ambitions.  

Funded by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), it will also strengthen essential AI capabilities at Culham Campus and across the UK’s high-performance computing landscape.

The supercomputer will deliver up to 6.76 Exaflops of AI-accelerated modelling, enabling high-fidelity simulations and the creation of digital twins for complex systems. 

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."

Dr Rob Akers, UKAEA’s Director for Computing Programmes, said: "UKAEA is taking lessons from the Apollo programme: we learn fastest when we can test, iterate, and improve safely in the virtual world before we commit to our real-world mission. Sunrise will bring that capability to fusion by combining high-fidelity simulation with physics-informed AI to develop predictive digital twins that reduce the cost, risk and time of learning that would otherwise require expensive and time-consuming physical testing.

"UKAEA is proud to be working with such a pioneering group of partners to harness AI and high-performance computing at scale to support the UK’s fusion roadmap and Net Zero mission."