STEP Fusion Programme Announces UK Manufacturing Partnerships with INFINITY, Manufacturing Technology Centre, and Kyoto Fusioneering

At the start of UK Fusion Week, UK Fusion Energy (UKFE, the UK Atomic Energy Authority subsidiary delivering the STEP prototype tokamak) announced on September 17, 2026 a trio of partnerships to build out the manufacturing base for STEP. UKFE partnered with INFINITY, developer of a 200-acre advanced manufacturing site at Infinity Park in Derby, for prototyping, digital engineering, testing/validation and supply-chain collaboration using hot isostatic pressing, power-beam welding, and additive manufacturing for large, complex, high-integrity fusion components. Separately, UKFE became a Tier 1 member of the Manufacturing Technology Centre (MTC), opening a new R&D contract route through which UKFE expects to spend up to £10M accessing MTC and High Value Manufacturing Catapult expertise. Kyoto Fusioneering announced on the same day it will invest up to £3M to design and build a lithium oxide solid breeder blanket experiment with online tritium measurement, to advance STEP's tritium-breeding technology in coordination with Oak Ridge National Laboratory's UNITY-3 facility and General Atomics' Fusion Blanket Component Test Facility. UKFE Chief Commercial Officer Dan Bishop said delivering STEP 'will depend on manufacturing capabilities that do not yet exist at the scale we need.' STEP targets prototype construction in the 2030s with operations from 2040.