UK: New 1.4MW mission-focused supercomputer to power fusion research

The UK government is investing £45 million (approximately $60 million) to build Sunrise, a 1.4-megawatt AI-focused supercomputer dedicated to accelerating nuclear fusion research. Installed at the UK Atomic Energy Authority’s Culham campus in Oxfordshire, Sunrise is set to begin operations in June and will be the most powerful AI supercomputer specifically designed for fusion energy science. By integrating advanced computing with physics-informed artificial intelligence models, the system aims to enable faster, more detailed simulations of plasma behavior and reactor materials under extreme conditions, which are critical challenges in fusion research. This approach will facilitate the creation of digital twins—virtual reactor models—that can test designs and operating conditions before costly physical prototypes are built. Sunrise will deliver up to 6.76 exaFLOPS of AI modeling performance, leveraging AMD EPYC processors, AMD Instinct GPUs, and Dell PowerEdge servers with WEKA storage. The project enjoys support from Intel, the University of Cambridge, and the UK Atomic