After nearly six years of design and construction, the ITER Scientific Data and Computing Centre was completed in December 2024 and will become fully operational in 2025. The Scientific Data and Computing Centre is designed to host up to 1 MW of equipment in 46 racks, constituting both the ITER high-performance computer (HPC) and the storage and communication systems used to manage all the project’s data and transfer it to an offsite backup location.The equipment will be relocated from its temporary home to its permanent home in the Scientific Data and Computer Centre during 2025. In the process, the HPC will be expanded to 17,000 cores. Both the temporary and the permanent locations are in the basement of ITER Headquarters. The new data centre will be energized to 50% capacity in the beginning, increasing gradually as needed. The first system, appropriately named “IBM Fusion,” has already been installed.The design of the computing infrastructure began in 2019, with the objective of meeting Tier 3 data centre standards which, among other things, call for no more than 1.6 hours of annual downtime of the central infrastructure such as power and cooling. This is a benchmark, and hopefully the design at ITER’s will exceed that part of the requirements, keeping downtime to an absolute minimum.To ensure maintenance can be performed on all central infrastructure without taking it offline, the data centre has multiple independent power distribution paths and redundant components for power and cooling. “We can lose one complete powertrain in the building and still do servicing, while we continue to operate using the other one,” says Peter Kroul, Computing Centre Officer. “And the same goes for generators, connectivity, and all other critical elements.”Providing tremendous computing power and massive data storage efficientlyThe ITER HPC is composed of multiple clusters designed to handle computationally intensive jobs such as Monte Carlo simulations. Neutronics, which are used to analyze neutron flows within a facility, are a key application of Monte Carlo methods. For nuclear safety, whenever the design of any part of the Tokamak Building is changed, neutronics have to be recalculated for the new structure. â€œMonte Carlo methods work particle by particle, tracking probabilities for every neutron individually,” explains David Fernandez, IT Systems and Operations Section Leader. “This involves a huge number of repetitions of the same operations, exactly the kind of intense jobs high-performance computers are designed to perform.” Opening one of the doors. Hundreds of cables are needed in each rack to interconnect the ITER high performance computer. In addition to the Monte Carlo algorithms, the ITER computer will be used to perform plasma physics simulations, fluid dynamics and several other compute-intensive jobs required for both science and engineering. But in most cases, the software needs to be tweaked first. “Simulations, and most other jobs that run on the high-performance computer, require source code modifications to exploit the full capacity of the large machine,” says Fernandez.The ITER Scientific Data and Computing Centre will also fulfill one of the high-level requirements for the ITER project, which is to store, secure, process and distribute the vast amount of data produced throughout its lifetime. The new data centre will start with storage capacity in the tens of petabyte scale, using IBM’s Spectrum Scale Storage System. But the centre is designed to store an estimated 5 exabytes of data, which the project is expected to produce over time.¹“To hold the complete data of the project throughout its duration, we are very much dependent on the continuous evolution of storage systems in terms of capacity and density,” explains Kroul. “Fortunately, we had access to technology roadmaps from some of the largest storage equipment providers in the world, which afforded us a degree of comfort in our projections. As an example, we could store 5 to 6 petabytes in a rack when we started in 2019. That number is now closer to 20 petabytes six years later—and expected to triple over the next three years.”The main control room, where operations will be monitored and analyzed, will have 10 days of data on hand for very fast access and analysis. All data will be streamed into the data centre, which will be the vault of ITER—keeping data in an online state throughout the lifetime of the project to allow scientists to perform analysis across the different experimental phases. According to Kroul, this differs from other large-scale experiments where data is kept online only during certain phases and then passed on to “cold” storage, where it can no longer be accessed quickly. “Here the requirement from the scientists is that they must be able to perform analyses across all phases, which results in a different storage design,” he says. “Instead of using cold tiering, we will keep everything in a hot state, which means on disk or similar throughout the project.”The data centre will be connected to a backup and distribution data centre over 50 km away in Marseille, using dedicated high-speed fiber optics, which are also redundant. Data storage and management will already begin in 2025 when the centre starts receiving data from various ITER plant systems.Mindful of sustainability, the designers of the Scientific Data and Computing Centre included in-row cooling, where servers and storage units are chilled by towers of liquid-cooling air conditioning units placed between racks. The power consumption and the amount of cooling can be optimized for each individual rack inside the facility.The efficiency of a data centre is typically measured with the power usage effectiveness (PUE) metric, which is a ratio of the total energy used in a data centre to the energy used by the actual computing equipment in a data centre. “I believe the ITER centre will have a PUE value below 1.3, which is decent in terms of energy and cooling consumption,” says Kroul.¹A petabyte is equal to one million gigabytes. An exabyte is equal to one thousand petabytes, or one billion gigabytes.

Since achieving first plasma in October 2023, the world’s largest operating tokamak—the joint international fusion experiment JT-60SA—has been undergoing a series of enhancements that are helping to ready the device for its first round of experiments in the second half of 2026. Part of the Broader Approach Agreement signed between Japan and Euratom (and implemented by QST Japan and the European Domestic Agency for ITER), JT-60SA is designed to support the operation of ITER and to investigate how best to optimize the design and operation of fusion power plants built after ITER.JT-60SA is a major upgrade of the former JT-60U tokamak, designed with features that allow the optimization of the shape of the plasma (making it more elongated and more “triangular”) to increase the confinement. The machine will allow the exploration of ITER-relevant high-density plasma regimes, well above the high-confined mode (H-mode) power threshold. In addition, the machine will have the capability of operating in different divertor configurations (both single and double null) to test different scenarios.Since the achievement of first plasma, and the inauguration of the device just a few weeks later, the joint team has been adding key components, including diagnostics, heating, ports and in-vessel equipment such as correction coils. In parallel, scientists are planning for the experimental campaign by reviewing the data from the initial plasma shots. Some 280 European and Japanese scientists collaborate as part of the experiment team.See the full report on the Fusion for Energy website.Follow Project Leader Sam Davis on a tour of the device in this new video.

A key member of the neutral beam injection team, Beatrix Schunke had worked since 2006 at ITER.  It is with profound sadness that we have learned that our colleague, friend and scientist Beatrix Schunke lost her courageous and valiant struggle against a long illness on 20 January 2025. We mourn the passing of this exceptional lady who was an integral part of the ITER Organization and the neutral beam team.Beatrix was born in Wanne-Eickel, Germany in 1959. She received a degree in experimental physics and a PhD from the Ruhr-Universität Bochum in 1985 and 1990 respectively. Her studies focused on two-photon laser spectroscopy and laser ablation experiments. She was with the JET Joint Undertaking in Culham, UK, for a one-year post-doctoral fellowship in the Electron Temperature Measurement Group, before moving to a staff position where she was involved in JET’s LIDAR Thomson scattering diagnostic (known to insiders as KE3, located in the roof laboratory above the tokamak). In 1995, she moved to the Operations Division as an Expert Session Leader.In 1998, she joined the Département de Recherche sur la Fusion Contrôlée, CEA Cadarache, France, where she was involved with the Visible and UV Spectroscopy Group in charge of the Zeff diagnostics. Following this long involvement in diagnostics, Beatrix joined the ITER Organization in 2006, where she took on responsibility for the diagnostic neutral beam. It was during this period, 2006-2024, that Beatrix made her mark on the ITER project and was a key member of the neutral beam injection team. Beatrix was responsible for the design, procurement, installation and commissioning of the diagnostic neutral beam with the Indian Domestic Agency. She took the role of acting section leader of the neutral beam team on many occasions, and guided and led team development over the intervening years. Beatrix was a mentor to many of the new recruits in the neutral beam project and was always giving of her time. She was also the scientific secretary for neutral beam design reviews, coordinating and managing many of the reviews and workshops for the team. Her work brought her in contact with many people across the project, from the different interfaces across the machine. She was widely known and respected, in particular for her diplomatic character and her strong determination and work ethic. She played an active role in US-EPSU Fusion, a union representing staff working in all Euratom fusion and associated centres in the European Union, both as member and as secretary. It was this determination that stood to her through her long illness, which she faced with courage and strength. Beatrix continued to work throughout her illness, regularly scheduling treatments in the early hours of the morning so that she could come straight to the office afterwards.Beatrix was known and respected across the project for her knowledge, efficiency, calmness, gentle character and smile. She and her legacy will live on through the ITER project and its successes. We express our sincere condolences to those closest to Beatrix, especially to Guido, her lifetime partner, her family and her many colleagues and friends throughout the world. She will be missed.

Shift operation managers at ITER work around the clock to ensure that operational areas of the plant are functioning normally and to intervene in the case of off-normal events. Last year, due to an increase in plant system activity on site, the first duty rotation was established.   As equipment installation activities progress at ITER, and more parts of the plant reach threshold milestones for testing, commissioning and operation, the need for coordination has increased. Enter the shift operation managers—whose 24/7 availability enables work to move forward in operational areas and timely response in the case of off-normal events. Twelve ITER Organization staff members with different technical backgrounds, and from different units, have been assigned to this duty and trained. The main mission of a shift operation manager is to conduct the daily coordination of activities within operational areas. Managing near-term schedules to resolve conflicting requests, issuing permits to work, and authorizing the execution of operating procedures are all part of their responsibility; they can also intervene in exceptional situations, authorizing the isolation (shutdown) of equipment for safe site intervention, or intervening as the primary responsible person from the temporary main control room or on-call in response to off-normal events.The year 2024 was the first year of the shift operation manager duty rotation, with constant coverage for the project. It was a period of significant milestones and achievements, including the first production of liquid helium in the cryoplant, the completion of commissioning of the reactive power compensation system, and the beginning of global coordination across the entire site for plant systems under commissioning and in temporary operation (buildings, steady-state electrical distribution, cooling water, liquid and gas services, treatment of effluents, cryogenics) with a strong focus on safety, efficiency, and technical excellence. These accomplishments are a testament to the commitment and expertise of everyone involved. Continued success and collaboration in the years to come will pave the way to the future tokamak commissioning and operation.

On Thursday 23 January Director-General Barabaschi presented ITER Star Awards to 79 individuals. The Star Awards come in addition to the annual recognition campaign by managers, recognizing employees from across the ITER project—not just ITER staff—who are nominated by colleagues for exemplary performance in line with ITER's corporate values of Collaboration, Accountability, Respect and Excellence (CARE). Recipients receiving the star-shaped glass award this year were ITER Project Associates and interim employees, as well as Domestic Agency and ITER Organization staff members.They were recognized for demonstrating commitment and flexibility inside of a team, promoting a culture of accountability, behaving respectfully and generously towards colleagues, or maintaining the highest standards of safety and quality ... to name a few of the attributes listed in the nomination documents.Appreciated by team members and colleagues alike, and making valuable contributions to the success of ITER, they are truly stars!

We are pleased to announce the launch of an online web-shop, the ITER Boutique: https://shop-iter.org/.Here you will be able to order ITER-branded clothing, office items, travel accessories and more for delivery to your home or address of choice. Boutique products range from simple pens and umbrellas to a mug featuring the Grad-Shafranov fusion equation, T-shirts illustrating the deuterium-tritium fusion reaction or the architecture of the ITER tokamak, and tote bags and water bottles featuring ITER-specific slogans and technical details.The boutique is operated by an ITER contractor, Synneo. Questions about products and services can be addressed to their experts, here.  Over time, we will add more items to the inventory.Many of our followers have requested such a shop in the past. We hope you will enjoy showing your support with ITER-branded merchandise.

In December 2024 Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, and Viola Amherd, President of the Swiss Confederation in 2024, confirmed the completion of negotiations on a broad package of agreements that aim to “deepen and expand the EU-Switzerland relationship.”As part of the agreements, Switzerland will participate in all three pillars of Horizon Europe (the European Union's key funding program for research and innovation) and the Euratom research and training program. It is under this latter program that Switzerland participated in the ITER project through the European Joint Undertaking for ITER (Fusion for Energy) from 2014 to 2020.The restart of Switzerland's association to the Horizon Europe, Digital Europe, and Euratom Research and Training programs is foreseen in 2025, subject to the signature of the agreement on Union programs. Switzerland's participation in Fusion for Energy is foreseen to start from 2026, and in Erasmus+ from 2027.Switzerland will again become a full member of Fusion for Energy, taking part in its governance and allowing Swiss companies and research centres to participate in ITER.See press releases from the European Commission and the Federal Council of the Swiss Confederation.--European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and President of the Swiss Confederation for 2024 Viola Amherd at a joint press conference in Bern on 20 December 2024 to announce the political agreement. (Photo credit: Keystone-SDA)