Second round of Genesis Mission selections includes 12 Phase II awards

[Marlin]

Second round of Genesis Mission selections includes 12 Phase II awards

https://www.ans.org/news/2026-10-21/article-8506/second-round-of-genesis-mission-selections-includes-12-phase-ii-awards/

[Core Content]

The Department of Energy selected 18 new projects under its Genesis Mission, including 12 Phase II awards designed to scale up research through multi-year funding. The latest round focuses on artificial intelligence applications for extreme radiation environments, facility operations, fusion energy development, and nuclear waste processing.

These awards connect national laboratories, universities, and private companies to accelerate technical timelines across the nuclear sector. Projects range from radiation-hardened microchip design for fusion machines to automated tuning for particle separators and digital twin simulations for commercial tokamak development.

The Department of Energy has announced the selection of 12 new Phase II awards and six new Phase I awards through its Genesis Mission, including projects related to fusion energy and high-radiation environments.

In July, the DOE announced the selection of 278 projects under the Genesis Mission, most of which were Phase I projects. Phase II awards are intended to scale up and expand projects that have already demonstrated potential for transformative scientific capability through multi-year funding.

Extreme environments: Nhan Tran, a Wilson Fellow at Fermilab, is leading a Phase II project titled "AXESS: Accelerating Extreme Environment Specs-to-Silicon." It aims to accelerate the development of rugged, high-performance microchips capable of operating in extreme conditions including space, ultra-cold environments, and high-radiation settings such as fusion machines.

Read the full article at ans.org:
https://www.ans.org/news/2026-10-21/article-8506/second-round-of-genesis-mission-selections-includes-12-phase-ii-awards/