digiLab & UKAEA: Accelerating the Realisation of Fusion Energy Together

digiLab and the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) continue to strengthen their partnership, applying advanced AI to complex data and engineering challenges on the pathway to fusion energy.

At the forefront of fusion energy and its related technologies, UKAEA is the government organisation responsible for the research and delivery of sustainable fusion energy. UKAEA spearheads the UK’s national fusion energy research programme, sponsored by the UK Government’s Department for Energy Security & Net Zero.

How is digiLab helping to solve challenges at UKAEA?

digiLab are world leaders in uncertainty quantification (UQ), developing trustworthy and explainable AI that enables data-driven decision-making. digiLab specialises in areas with uncertain or sparse data, resulting in more robust predictions, which is what makes digiLab’s technology so useful in the fusion industry. This utilisation of probabilistic AI has helped UKAEA solve a variety of complex challenges relating to reactor design, digital twinning, real-time fusion machine and plasma control, and much more.

Rob Akers, Director of Computing Programmes at UKAEA says: “Many SMEs focus on AI and data science, but digiLab’s state-of-the-art methods for uncertainty quantification certainly stand out, offering a unique contribution to the world of fusion energy.”

Since the start of this partnership, digiLab has helped the UKAEA to achieve groundbreaking results, revolutionising how simulations are conducted. With digiLab’s product, simulation speeds can be accelerated exponentially, enabling scientists and engineers to work at an unprecedented rate with increased efficiency. digiLab’s product not only empowers experts to make faster decisions, but also enables smarter decisions by extracting more information.

Why is AI so important in a field like fusion and how is digiLab utilising it to accelerate the path to Fusion?

AI plays a pivotal role in accelerating the development of fusion energy because it’s a field that is highly uncertain and complex. With digiLab’s AI-driven solutions, simulations are made more actionable and predictive, R&D is fast-tracked, and risks can be managed more effectively. digiLab’s collaboration with the UKAEA enables problems to be solved faster and with more confidence.

Tim Dodwell, Co-founder & CEO at digiLab says: “Digital technologies like ours are going to be essential for the future of fusion technology. Currently, many of the experiments that engineers are running are built on hugely complicated systems that take weeks of simulation time to run on supercomputers. Our AI can fast track this process by up to 10 million times - it’s difficult to imagine the magnitude of time and cost savings when you quantify the impact of this.”

The partnership between digiLab and UKAEA represents a significant leap forward in fusion energy research and development. By combining digiLab's expertise in probabilistic AI and uncertainty quantification with UKAEA's world-leading fusion knowledge, this collaboration is accelerating the path to viable fusion energy. Utilising advanced AI that is trustworthy and explainable not only saves time and resources but also enables more informed decision-making in this complex field.

As the fusion industry continues to grow, partnerships like this one between digiLab and UKAEA will be crucial in overcoming the challenges that lie ahead. By leveraging advanced AI technologies, the dream of clean, limitless fusion energy is becoming increasingly tangible.

To learn more about the partnership: digiLab & UKAEA: Using AI to Accelerate the Realisation of Fusion Energy Together

About digiLab

Having grown from a small team of expert mathematicians and data scientists, digiLab is now a leading AI company that empowers organisations in highly regulated or safety-critical industries to solve their complex engineering, infrastructure or data challenges.

As world leaders in uncertainty quantification, based on years of cutting-edge academic research, digiLab’s team of 30+ experts specialise in areas with uncertain or sparse data, teaching teams how to solve their grand challenges using digiLab’s platform.

digiLab’s platform is a no-code agentic AI platform that combines data, models and workflows to connect a trustworthy AI digital thread through an organisation. digiLab enables you and your teams to solve complex problems in a secure and auditable platform to build decision intelligence and shorten time to value.

About the United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority

UKAEA is the national organisation responsible for the research and delivery of sustainable fusion energy. It is an executive non-departmental public body, sponsored by the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.

UKAEA runs the fusion machine MAST-Upgrade (Mega Amp Spherical Tokamak) and is delivering the transition of JET (Joint European Torus) from plasma operations to repurposing and decommissioning. The insights gained from this process will contribute to the advancement of sustainable future fusion power plants.

STEP (Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production) is a major technology and infrastructure programme that will demonstrate net energy from fusion, fuel self-sufficiency and a route to plant maintenance. UKAEA is STEP’s fusion partner and will work alongside STEP’s industry partners – one in engineering and one in construction – with the following short-list announced here.

The STEP programme is being delivered by UK Industrial Fusion Solutions Ltd (UKIFS) a wholly owned subsidiary of UKAEA Group. UKIFS will lead STEP’s integrated delivery team to design and build the prototype plant at West Burton site in Nottinghamshire, targeting first operations in 2040.

UKAEA is now engaging in Fusion Futures, a programme that aims to foster world-leading innovation whilst stimulating general industry capacity through international collaboration and the development of future fusion power plants.

UKAEA also undertakes cutting edge work with research organisations and the industrial supply chain in a wide spectrum of areas, including robotics and materials.

More information: https://www.gov.uk/ukaea. Social Media: @UKAEAofficial

About fusion energy

When a mix of two forms of hydrogen (deuterium and tritium) is heated to form a controlled plasma at extreme temperatures – 10 times hotter than the core of the Sun – they fuse together to create helium and release energy which can be harnessed to produce electricity. There is more than one way of achieving this. UKAEA’s approach is to hold this hot plasma using strong magnets in a ring-shaped machine called a ‘tokamak’, and then to harness this heat to produce electricity in a similar way to existing power stations.