IBM, STFC and UKAEA collaborate on fusion powerplant design
UKAEA, STFC's Hartree Centre and IBM have partnered to collaborate on designing future experimental fusion powerplants.
Rob Akers (UKAEA), Kate Royse (STFC Hartree Centre) and Juan Bernabe-Moreno (IBM) at signing of partnership agreement for fusion collaboration
Public sector entities, the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) and the Science and Technology Facilities Council’s (STFC) Hartree Centre, have partnered with technology pioneer, IBM, to work on designing future experimental fusion powerplants.
UKAEA, the UK’s national organisation responsible for researching and delivering fusion energy, will provide programme requirements, domain expertise and selected data from its JET and MAST-U machines.
IBM, as a pioneer in high-performance computing (HPC), Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Quantum technologies, together with STFC’s Hartree Centre – renowned for its heritage in making HPC, extreme-scale AI, and other digital solutions accessible to industry and the public sector – will bring unparalleled digital expertise to the partnership.
The collaboration will leverage IBM and STFC’s expertise in AI alongside UKAEA’s data and modelling capabilities to create “frontier” or “foundation models” capable of learning the fundamental dynamics of the experimental fusion data.
The partnership brings together fusion scientists and AI experts from the three organisations and aims to drive transformative breakthroughs in applying AI to fusion powerplant design and experimental facility operations.
The initiative supports the growth of the UK’s fusion sector, addressing a need to “re-engineer” design for the AI, exascale, and fusion delivery era.
Commenting on the partnership, Juan Bernabe-Moreno, Director IBM Research Europe, UK and Ireland, said: “I am especially excited to see our team exploring together with the UKAEA and the Hartree Centre experts how we can use generative AI technologies to approach one of the most challenging problems of our time. It is certainly a testament to the kind of research we are driving in the UK for the greater good.”
Vassil Alexandrov, Chief Science Officer, STFC Hartree Centre, added: “I am really very pleased that, thanks to our well-established collaborations with both IBM and UKAEA, we can now come together to address a key grand challenge and advance state-of-the-art in modelling and simulation of fusion powerplants, thereby supporting the UK’s ambition to become a global leader in clean energy innovation.”
Rob Akers, Director of Computing Programmes, UKAEA, commented: “I am delighted that we are joining forces with IBM and STFC’s Hartree Centre to work on our ambitious programme aiming to deliver commercial fusion in the 2040’s by exploiting the transformative power of Artificial Intelligence. IBM’s expertise in complex systems engineering and supercomputing and the Hartree Centre’s expertise in democratising HPC and AI into the engineering sector, combined with UKAEA’s leading research and development in fusion energy will be a powerful force for progress in this hugely important field.”
Fusion energy has the potential to offer safe, sustainable and low carbon energy for generations to come. It could be transformative for energy security and important in the fight against climate change.