UK Atomic Energy Authority readies fusion simulation AI supercomputer

As part of its 50 point artificial intelligence (AI) opportunities action plan, the UK government announced that the country’s first AI supercomputer is being established to support Culham Campus in Oxfordshire, the site of the UK’s first AI growth zone. 

The government is investing £45m into a 1.4MW supercomputer named Sunrise, a key first step in establishing the country’s first AI Growth Zone, at the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA).

Unveiled in the UK’s Fusion Strategy, Sunrise is due to be ready by June. The government claims it is the world’s most powerful AI supercomputer dedicated to fusion energy.

With the global economy under siege from the effective closure of the Strait of Hormuz due to the US and Israeli bombing of Iran, the UK government is looking at how to buffer the country’s energy from volatility in the oil market.

Patrick Vallance, minister for science, innovation, research and nuclear, said: “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.”

Funded by the Department of Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ), Sunrise is being built to tackle fusion energy challenges in areas such as plasma turbulence, materials development and tritium fuel breeding. It is also being positioned to 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.

The 6.76 exaflops AI supercomputer involves a collaboration between AMD, DESNZ, the Department for Science, Innovation and Technology (DSIT), Dell Technologies, Intel, UKAEA, the University of Cambridge, and Weka, a data platform provider.

Sunrise uses AMD Epyc processors and AMD Instinct graphics processor unit (GPU) acceleration, purpose-built on a Dell PowerEdge platform. Thomas Zacharia, senior vice-president of strategy and development for the public sector at AMD, said: “Fusion research pushes the limits of science and computing, demanding massive simulation, complex modelling and advanced AI to accelerate progress.”

The UKAEA said Sunrise will be used to accelerate modelling, power high-fidelity simulations and enable the creation of digital twins for complex systems.

Rob Akers, UKAEA’s director for computing programmes, said: “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,” he added.

In 2023, Dell Technologies, Intel, the University of Cambridge and UKAEA shared plans to use supercomputers and AI to advance the development of the UK’s prototype fusion power plant design capabilities through the ‘industrial metaverse’.

In January 2026, £36m of government investment was injected into the Cambridge supercomputing centre.

Paul Calleja, director of the Cambridge Research Computing Service, said: “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.”