The signing of the cooperation agreement (Image: STFC's Hartree Centre)
The partnership aims to unite fusion scientists and Artificial Intelligence (AI) experts from the three organisations to drive transformative breakthroughs in applying AI to fusion power plant designs and experimental facility operations. The collaboration will combine the Hartree Centre and IBM's expertise in AI and high-performance computing, with UKAEA's data and modelling capabilities, to create a 'frontier' or 'foundation models' capable of learning and underpinning the fundamental dynamics of experimental fusion data. UKAEA - the UK's national organisation responsible for researching and delivering fusion energy - will provide programme requirements, domain expertise and selected data from its JET and MAST-U machines.
"Our approach to-date for designing these complex machines has been one of 'test-based design' - ie an iterative approach of 'learning by doing'," IBM said. "Unfortunately, measured against the demanding timeline for decarbonising and transitioning economies into the Net-Zero era, test-based design for fusion has now become too slow and too expensive.
"It is essential therefore that the fusion sector adopts the latest digital technologies to accelerate and de-risk the delivery of commercial fusion power - for operations and for plant design. In short, we must move the dial which represents how we design complex strongly coupled fusion systems away from test-based design and towards the digital world of simulation and 'data centric' engineering."
The new collaboration is expected to create foundation models that can learn the underpinning dynamics of the UKAEA's fusion plasma/plant experimental data. This will enable the generation of new information and new capabilities that will feed into various applications, including training downstream models for simulation and/or prediction. Using these techniques, the models will 'learn' from past experiments, ideally 'incrementally' whereby they will ingest live experimental data.
"I am delighted that we are joining forces with IBM and STFC's Hartree Centre to work on our ambitious programme aiming to deliver commercial fusion in the 2040s by exploiting the transformative power of Artificial Intelligence," said UKAEA Director of Computing Programmes Rob Akers. "IBM's expertise in complex systems engineering and supercomputing and the Hartree Centre's expertise in democratising high-performance computing and AI into the engineering sector, combined with UKAEA's leading research and development in fusion energy will be a powerful force for progress in this hugely important field."
"I am really very pleased that, thanks to our well-established collaborations with both IBM and UKAEA, we can now come together to address a key grand challenge and advance state-of-the-art in modelling and simulation of fusion powerplants, thereby supporting the UK's ambition to become a global leader in clean energy innovation," said Vassil Alexandrov, Chief Science Officer at national computing centre STFC Hartree Centre.
Juan Bernabe-Moreno, director of IBM Research Europe, UK and Ireland, said: "I am especially excited to see our team exploring together with the UKAEA and the Hartree Centre experts how we can use generative AI technologies to approach one of the most challenging problems of our time. It is certainly a testament to the kind of research we are driving in the UK for the greater good."
