The UK is taking a major step toward making nuclear fusion energy a practical reality with the announcement of a £45 million investment in “Sunrise,” a specialised AI supercomputer set to become the world’s most powerful system dedicated exclusively to fusion research.
Announced on Monday (16 March) by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), Sunrise will be deployed at the UK Atomic Energy Authority’s (UKAEA) Culham Campus in Oxfordshire.
The machine is expected to go live in June 2026 and marks the first element of the UK’s inaugural AI Growth Zone at the site, aimed at boosting AI-driven scientific innovation.
Fusion energy is the energy which powers the sun by smashing light atomic nuclei together to release vast amounts of clean, near-limitless power.
It has long been called the “holy grail” of power generation. It promises abundant, low-carbon electricity without the long-lived radioactive waste of traditional nuclear fission or the intermittency of renewables like wind and solar.
Yet major hurdles remain, including containing ultra-hot plasmas, developing durable materials, and efficiently breeding tritium fuel.
Serious compute
Sunrise addresses these directly by enabling ultra-high-fidelity simulations and AI-accelerated modelling.
It delivers up to 6.76 exaflops of AI performance, a massive leap in computational power for creating predictive “digital twins” of fusion systems.
These virtual replicas allow researchers to test, iterate, and optimise designs safely in software, slashing the need for expensive and time-consuming physical experiments.
“UK Atomic Energy Authority 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,” said Dr. Rob Akers, UKAEA’s Director for Computing Programmes.
“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.”
The system is built on a collaboration involving major tech players:
- AMD (providing EPYC processors and Instinct GPU acceleration),
- Dell Technologies (PowerEdge platform and storage),
- Intel (AI capabilities and high memory bandwidth),
- WEKA (high-performance storage),
- UK AI software firm StackHPC.
The University of Cambridge is also partnering on co-design, delivery, and operations, building on existing collaborations.
Powering the 1.4MW machine, Sunrise will tackle plasma turbulence modelling, advanced materials testing, and tritium breeding cycles – core challenges for projects like STEP (Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production), the UK’s flagship prototype fusion power plant slated for operation in the early 2040s at West Burton in Nottinghamshire.
“We can be proud that Britain will lead the way on research, innovation and skills for a future of limitless fusion energy,” said Lord Vallance, Minister for Science, Innovation, Research and Nuclear.
“By backing our fusion industry, we are not only securing our future energy independence, but providing the skilled clean energy jobs of the future for British people.”
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