U.S. Energy Department Announces $21 Million for Fusion Energy Research

The U.S. Energy Department on Aug. 19 announced a plan to award $21 million to support artificial intelligence and machine learning research on fusion energy for a duration of three years. The awards are expected to improve operational efficiencies with automated data analysis workflows and real-time control algorithms at the Office of Science. The department also encourages the researchers to use its world-leading supercomputing resources.

Awards were selected based on peer review under the department’s funding opportunity announcement, along with the companion statement for its laboratories. The effort is part of the department’s Scientific Discovery through Advanced Computing program, which was initiated in 2001 to advance scientific discovery with supercomputers.

The budget for the fiscal year 2020 is $8 million out of the total budget of $21 million.