High performance datacentre to accelerate UK nuclear fusion moves closer

Partitioned AI datacentre will host fusion digital twin and further high-performance compute

UKAEA Culham Campus will be the site of a high-powered datacentre which will host a digital twin of a prototype fusion energy power plant in the UK’s first AI growth zone.

A hyperscale datacentre with a difference is coming to Oxfordshire.

The government set out plans at the beginning of this year for new AI Growth Zones (AIGZs) designed to create thousands of jobs and attract investment in AI infrastructure development. It pledged to speed up planning and energy infrastructure development in these zones as part of its wider AI Opportunities Action Plan.

The first AIGZ will be at UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) Culham Campus. The choice was based on Culham’s half a century of history at the cutting edge of plasma physics and fusion research. Now the JET (Joint European Torus) fusion research facility is being decommissioned, there is a huge building with a colossal power infrastructure attached ripe for conversion into a high-powered datacentre – but with a difference to the usual co-lo facility.

The datacentre will be a joint public/private venture, with part of the high-performance infrastructure hosting a digital twin of STEP (Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production) a Nottinghamshire-based venture to design and build the UK’s first prototype fusion energy power plant, targeting net energy on the grid in the 2040s. The digital twin will help researchers to solve key fusion challenges virtually, with the aid of supercomputing and AI.

Dominic Rumsey, founder and chief executive officer of SUB1, a next generation data centre developer which has been appointed to act in an advisory capacity for UKAEA explains how the facility will work.

“The data centre will have a partition of approximately 20 to 30% which will be for fusion and Net-Zero research purposes. The remaining 70-80% will be more of a general data centre workload, but of a high-density nature designed for AI use cases.”

“Where it gets interesting is at the research partition. The STEP researchers are using AI to accelerate the development of the next phase of fusion. If there are GPU-as-a service providers that are sitting in the commercial zone of the datacentre, the research element will have the ability to burst into those areas and use more compute as and when it's needed. It's designed to be a balance of private and public sector coming together to accelerate fusion research from a compute perspective.”

Rumsey went on to explain the wider impact of this initiative as part of the AIGZ.

“The Culham Campus, because of its history and infrastructure is a melting pot of fusion research, Net Zero technologies research and innovation, The idea is that an AIGZ datacentre sits in the middle of it, driving further innovation and making it an attractive place for business.”

SUB1 will provide a range of advisory services to UKAEA, including advice on data centre requirements, power consumption, and industry engagement.

Rumsey said "Environmental sustainability is one of the founding principles of SUB1, and I can think of nothing that would make a greater impact than leveraging AI to help make fusion energy an abundant and sustainable source of power for future generations.

“It is also fantastic to see the public and private sectors collaborating in this way and I look forward to working with both UKAEA and the government to ensure the commercial success of the data centre as part of the Culham AI Growth Zone.”