The UK government is investing £45 million for a 1.4MW mission-focused supercomputer named ‘Sunrise’, a key first step in establishing the country’s first AI Growth Zone at the UK Atomic Energy Authority’s (UKAEA) Culham Campus in Oxfordshire.

As announced in the Fusion Strategy, Sunrise is targeted for operation in June this year and is primed to be the world’s most powerful AI supercomputer dedicated to fusion energy. Funded by the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), Sunrise will tackle key fusion energy challenges in areas such as plasma turbulence, materials development and tritium fuel breeding, while delivering spillover benefits to other clean energy technologies and the UK’s broader net zero ambitions.

Sunrise will also strengthen essential AI capabilities at Culham Campus and across the UK’s high-performance computing landscape, contributing to the government’s AI Opportunities Action Plan and AI for Science Strategy.

Sunrise will see AMD, DESNZ, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), Dell Technologies, Intel, UKAEA, the University of Cambridge, and WEKA working together.