The US Department of Energy (DOE) has announced it will deploy $21 million (£16m) of funding for fusion energy research projects.

The finance will enable scientists to take advantage of new artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning technologies to speed up progress in fusion energy research.

Part of the funding will also be allocated to improve operations at the Office of Science fusion facilities by automating data analysis and enabling algorithms.

In a statement, DOE said: “AI and machine learning will help us to accelerate progress in fusion and keep American scientists at the forefront of fusion research.”