UK Fusion Energy Developer UKIFS Awards £7.9 Million Contract for Modular HPC Data Center

UK Fusion Energy Developer UKIFS Awards £7.9 Million Contract for Modular HPC Data Center

January 5, 2026

In a significant move for the high-performance computing and clean energy sectors, UK Industrial Fusion Solutions Ltd (UKIFS), a subsidiary of the UK Atomic Energy Authority, has awarded a £7.87 million (approximately $10.6 million) contract to technology solutions provider Boxxe Ltd. The deal, formalized through a public contract award notice, is for the delivery of a new modular high-performance computing (HPC) data center to support the UK's ambitious fusion energy research program.

The contract covers the complete "installation and delivery of a modular data center and enclosed IT infrastructure, consisting of CPU and GPU nodes," and includes provisions for long-term support and maintenance. The facility is expected to be housed at the Culham Science Centre in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, which is also the headquarters of UKIFS and a designated UK AI Growth Zone. The procurement was conducted via the Southern University Purchasing Consortium's High Performance Computing framework, with Dell Technologies serving as the hardware provider and Boxxe acting as the reseller.

This investment underscores the critical and growing role of advanced computing in pioneering scientific endeavors. UKIFS is leading the STEP (Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production) program, which aims to design and build the UK's first prototype fusion energy plant. Fusion energy, which replicates the sun's power generation process, promises a near-limitless, low-carbon energy source but requires immense computational power for plasma modeling, materials science, and engineering simulations to overcome its profound technical challenges.

The development highlights a converging trend where frontier energy research and cutting-edge digital infrastructure become increasingly interdependent. Furthermore, it reflects a broader industry pattern where major technology firms are actively exploring fusion as a potential future power source for energy-intensive data centers. Notable examples include Microsoft's 2023 power purchase agreement with fusion firm Helion and Google DeepMind's research partnership with Commonwealth Fusion Systems.

For Boxxe, a UK-based provider of hardware, software, and managed IT services with over three decades of operation, the contract represents a major project in the public sector and research domain. The new modular HPC facility will provide the essential computational backbone for the STEP program, accelerating the complex research and development required to make commercial fusion energy a reality.

Source: datacenterdynamics