Nuclear fusion could provide humankind with an unlimited supply of clean, safe and sustainable energy, which would mean forgetting about the dire effects of fossil fuels. However, after almost a century of billion-dollar investments in nuclear fusion research, continuous fusion reactions have not been achieved yet due to the extremely challenging scientific and technical barriers that must be overcome. The performance of a fusion power plant is fundamentally dependent on the quality of confinement. For the confinement to be effective, it must satisfy two crucial criteria: 1) Stability and 2) The ability to maintain plasma over time with negligible leakage. Building upon the revolutionary mirror fusion concept by Novatron, which inherently stabilizes the plasma, the Tau-E Breakthrough project (TauEB) is designed to provide essential plasma plugs. These plugs are crucial for confining the plasma over an extended period, making it scalable to a fusion reactor that generates energy at a competitive Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE). This radically new design will make it possible to bring nuclear fusion technology to the commercial stage in record time, thus changing our lives not only by creating a multi-billion euro market, but above all by providing great social, environmental, economic and geopolitical benefits. To successfully achieve the project’s goals and maximise the impact of its results, we have brought together a multidisciplinary consortium combining the deep knowledge of KTH, KIPT and UKAEA in different complementary fields of nuclear fusion research (magnetic confinement, plasma stability, advanced simulation methods, radio frequency plasma heating, ponderomotive plugging and diagnostics), NFG’s revolutionary Novatron concept and its outstanding technological implementation skills (system design, mechanical design, instrumentation and plasma diagnostics), and IE’s outstanding innovation and exploitation management advice.

The European fusion community has become increasingly collaborative over the last few decades with more experimental devices becoming available for broader groups of researchers. The diversity of devices is a great strength of the programme, but as each facility largely has developed their own data technologies, philosophies and access methodologies it has in some cases also presented challenges in sharing data even between collaborating scientists. Opening the data up and making them more easily available on a pan-European basis is a key ingredient in exploiting the investments in the research infrastructures made so far. The overall objective of this work is to make European funded data more widely available to the fusion community, other science communities, funding bodies, and the public at large in order to maximise the impact of, the data and demonstrate the importance of the work done at relevant sites. We aim in this proposal to achieve all of the goals specified in this call by not only providing a reference architecture for such an open data platform, but to both demonstrate and elicit feedback from existing users within the fusion domain, to ensure they are both exposed to the benefits of such an open science approach and that we are able to obtain feedback to provide input into the design. We will also demonstrate these tools to other communities involved in open data initiatives (such as EOSC partners) to gain insight based on their existing experience. Tools will be created to support some underpinnings of FAIR and Open data based on policies obtained from existing which can be used both as stand-alone services and as building blocks in a future open data platform. Where possible, we will make use of existing services and tools, adapting them where necessary to meet the needs of the fusion community.

The landscape for High Performance Computing is changing with the proliferation of enormous volumes of data created by scientific instruments and sensors, in addition to data from simulations. This data needs to be stored, processed and analysed, and existing storage system technologies in the realm of extreme computing need to be adapted to achieve reasonable efficiency in achieving higher scientific throughput. We started on the journey to address this problem with the SAGE project. The HPC use cases and the technology ecosystem is now further evolving and there are new requirements and innovations that are brought to the forefront. It is extremely critical to address them today without “reinventing the wheel” leveraging existing initiatives and know-how to build the pieces of the Exascale puzzle as quickly and efficiently as we can. The SAGE paradigm already provides a basic framework to address the extreme scale data aspects of High Performance Computing on the path to Exascale. Sage2 (Percipient StorAGe for Exascale Data Centric Computing 2) intends to validate a next generation storage system building on top of the already existing SAGE platform to address new use case requirements in the areas of extreme scale computing scientific workflows and AI/deep learning leveraging the latest developments in storage infrastructure software and storage technology ecosystem. Sage2 aims to provide significantly enhanced scientific throughput, improved scalability, and, time & energy to solution for the use cases at scale. Sage2 will also dramatically increase the productivity of developers and users of these systems. This proposal is aligned to FETHPC-02 - 2017:part (c). Sage2 provides a highly performant and resilient, QoS capable multi tiered storage system, with data layouts across the tiers managed by the Mero Object Store, which is capable of handling in-transit/in-situ processing of data within the storage system, accessible through the Clovis API.

Digital servitisation of manufacturing allows to produce on-demand customised products, with high quality, flexibility and short lead time. Although this is a win-to-win situation, there is a lack of methodologies. To reverse this trend, the project Lasers4MaaS will spearhead innovations in manufacturing technologies and digital platforms with associated services. The ultimate goal is to enable a 6-point strategy (reconfigure, connect, control, predict, improve, comply) to operationalise the smart, decentralised and sustainable factories of the future. Lasers4MaaS is set to deliver breakthroughs that merge manufacturing technologies with cutting-edge digital innovations. It marks significant scientific and technical advancements in several areas: the latest advances in dynamic beam shaping and modular production schemes to maximise flexibility and reconfigurability; harmonized protocols and distributed/centralised ledgers for data interoperability across factory boundaries; IIoT solutions for remote monitoring/predictive maintenance; real-time AI-based decision support for improved product quality; advanced physics-based digital twins; life cycle-based tools for environmental impact and costing assessment. The Lasers4MaaS digital platform, with its comprehensive range of services and breakthroughs, will be demonstrated in automotive, fusion, food packaging, aerospace and hydrogen sectors, which are considered strategic sectors for reaching the Green Deal objectives. This consortium comprising 4 academic partners, 8 industrial partners and an industry advisory board, ensures a seamless progression from TRL 4 to 6 with well-defined exploitation routes, while supporting standardisation initiatives, such as digital product passport, and facilitating training initiatives and knowledge transfer.