UK vision for fusion supercomputer and strategy funding

The U.K. government has announced a series of initiatives to progress fusion to commercialization laid out in a fusion strategy policy paper published March 16. A New Energy Revolution: The UK's Plan for Delivering Fusion Energy begins to describe how the government's 2.5 billion pound investment in fusion research and development over five years will be allocated. The plan focuses on three areas of accelerating research and development, growing investment supply chains and skills, and policy innovation. Also on March 16 the United Kingdom announced funding for a new fusion dedicated supercomputer. Sunrise is a 1.4 megawatt system targeted for operation in June 2026 that is expected to deliver up to 6.76 exaflops of artificial intelligence accelerated modeling. The United Kingdom is investing 45 million pounds in the project. Minister of State Patrick Vallance and Financial Secretary to the Treasury Spencer Livermore said in the paper's foreword that today the U.K. is backing fusion research and commercialization with over 2.5 billion pounds over five years as part of the U.K.'s plan for change. According to a U.K. government press release this is set to support over 10,000 U.K. jobs by 2030, drive investment and give industry the confidence to take fusion from the lab to the grid ready for deployment. These announcements are part of a wider effort by the U.K. to speed overall nuclear deployment.