The Fusion Engineering Institute at UC San Diego is specifically focused on addressing difficult engineering challenges that must be solved so that the promise of affordable, clean fusion energy can be realized through commercially viable fusion power plants. Partner with us to continue to build momentum.
Our Mission
- To address many of the difficult engineering challenges that are holding back fusion energy as a practical reality.
- To increase the fusion energy workforce in the State of California and across the nation.
- To bring together fusion experts in academia, U.S. National Labs, the private sector, and funding agencies in order to build and strengthen fusion-engineering collaborations across California, the nation and the world.
Building Momentum
The Fusion Engineering Institute was launched just one year after UC San Diego held a two-day workshop named UC Fusion Technology, Research & Engineering (FUTRE).
The workshop, held in September 2023, provided an important forum to discuss California’s role in the future of fusion as a clean energy source and the steps needed to bring this about.
Experts from seven UC campuses, industry and national laboratories attended to discuss challenges and develop the path forward for the creation of a California-based fusion engineering center or institute to help enable the move of fusion into the commercial sector.
As a result of this workshop, a white paper was developed that answered the questions of why now, why California, what technical issues remain, and what next.
In response to the strong support from participants, UC San Diego and the Jacobs School of Engineering have launched the Fusion Engineering Institute as a concrete step toward realizing the larger goals of fully deploying the strengths within California to leverage fusion to meet today’s and tomorrow’s clean energy needs.
Building on Strengths
UC San Diego has historic and present strengths in fusion science and engineering, many of which are tied to our Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering. For the 2024-2025 hiring cycle, UC San Diego is recruiting for two mechanical and aerospace engineering faculty positions in fusion engineering (assistant professor in fusion engineering and associate or full professor in fusion engineering) within the Jacobs School of Engineering.
External partnerships, including those listed below, are crucial for strengthening research and workforce development capacity within UC San Diego. Learn about opportunities to build new fusion engineering partnerships here.
The origins of some of the historic strengths at UC San Diego are outlined in chapter 1 this history written by Jacobs School Dean Emeritus Bob Conn (PDF).
UC San Diego Center for Energy Research
The Fusion Engineering Institute isn’t starting from scratch. We’ll be building off four decades of momentum from our UC San Diego Center for Energy Research, which has been focused on creating solutions for the growing challenges of energy supply, distribution, and utilization since 1972.
Industry Partnerships
The Jacobs School of Engineering and General Atomics are actively engaged in many collaborative projects in fusion science; fusion engineering; and artificial intelligence, data science and high performance computing relevant for fusion. General Atomics and UC San Diego Launch Fusion Data Science and Digital Engineering Center in March 2025.
UC San Diego is located within one mile of the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) DIII-D National Fusion Facility, which is operated by General Atomics (GA) and is home to the largest tokamak in the country. General Atomics is manufacturing the world’s largest pulsed superconducting magnets for the international project, ITER, the enormous magnetic fusion facility under construction in France. ITER performs world leading simulations of fusion plasmas.
General Atomics also is the biggest supplier of targets for inertial confinement fusion (ICF) experiments at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) and the University of Rochester. General Atomics produced the targets that achieved world-record fusion gain at the National Ignition Facility (NIF).
Jacobs School of Engineering faculty and students are extensively involved in the DIII-D research program, and many are based at DIII-D working on various aspects of tokamak research. Jacobs School of Engineering faculty and DIII-D’s scientists and engineers are highly collaborative, performing state-of-the art research, and are educating high-quality and well-trained students for the future fusion workforce.
Historical ties between the Jacobs School of Engineering and General Atomics, on advanced computing at UC San Diego, form a strong foundation for fusion-engineering collaborations.
National Lab Partnerships
The Jacobs School of Engineering and researchers across UC San Diego have long-standing collaborations with many of the National Labs on the cutting-edge of fusion science, including Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL) and Los Alamos National Lab. The Jacobs School is a partner institution on the LLNL-led national Inertial Fusion Energy (IFE) Science & Technology Accelerated Research for Fusion Innovation & Reactor Engineering (STARFIRE) Hub.
LLNL and Los Alamos National Labs are both partners on the National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA) Center of Excellence, managed here at UC San Diego.
Our graduate students work closely with researchers at these National Labs on fusion energy projects, and many go on to continue their careers as scientists and engineers at the National Labs.