Critical Fusions: Responsible Innovation at the Intersection of AI and Clean Energy

Part of the Deep Tech and Society online seminar series. Free and open to all; register through Microsoft Teams.

As AI systems drive unprecedented energy demand, fusion is increasingly positioned as a potential, though as yet unproven, pathway to abundant, low-carbon power. At the same time, AI is accelerating fusion research, from optimising plasma control to enabling complex reactor simulations. The convergence of these technologies nonetheless raises pressing questions about environmental impact, governance, and societal trust.

This research interrogates how fusion energy is increasingly positioned as part of the solution to the “AI sustainability problem” embedded within future energy infrastructure, as well as how AI proposes to accelerate fusion energy development. In order to critically examine the interplay of these two technologies, we ask: How does technological promise influence research priorities, investment, and governance? What pathways would be required for expectations to become reality? What are the potential social, ethical, environmental and political consequences of these converging narratives?

We examine the emerging relationship between AI and fusion energy through the lens of responsible innovation, simultaneously acknowledging risks (e.g. technical, social and environmental) while identifying opportunities for sustainable, ethical, and socially responsive innovation. Building on results from semi-structured interviews with technical developers, policy-makers and civil society actors, the project will also explore stakeholder expectations and the proposed routes to achieving the potential of these combined technologies responsibly. This approach is both critical and hopeful, seeking to inform policy and research strategies that move beyond hype toward actionable solutions.

About the speaker

Sophie Cogan is a PhD candidate at the University of York where her thesis, ‘Envisioned, Experienced, and Embedded: Dynamics of Values in UK Fusion Energy Development’, explored how values enter, interact, and become embedded in the development of an emerging energy technology. Alongside her research, she co-founded the Open Fusion Collective platform, a space for open discussion on the social and ethical dimensions of fusion energy development. Her current research interests look more broadly to the philosophy and politics of science and technology, but focus on the ethics of emerging technologies and sociotechnical futures.