The CEA: 80 years of research and innovation
to tackle the world’s most pressing challenges
© CEA
Nuclear energy, medicine, information technology, space, defense, electronics… since its creation in 1945, the CEA has been behind many great scientific discoveries and technological innovations. These achievements have helped us meet the challenges of the past eight decades and change the daily lives of millions of people.
Operating at the intersection of science, technology, commerce, industrial applications and public policy, and renowned for its experience in managing major projects, including research and technology infrastructures, the CEA has developed a highly original approach that is both multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary – working with academic partners in France, Europe and worldwide, it draws on and integrates different areas of expertise to deliver breakthrough technologies and innovative solutions.
decades of cooperation between
the CEA and American partners
For decades, the CEA and its U.S. partners, including DOE and its National Laboratories, have worked closely together on nuclear energy – particularly fission and fusion energy.
With regard to nuclear fission, the CEA’s research on reactor technologies and their nuclear fuel cycles has contributed significantly to the widespread growth of nuclear energy as a clean, safe and affordable bulk power source.
As for fusion, France is the host state of the international ITER project and the CEA is one of its major scientific partners, with its WEST tokamak operating in proximity to the ITER complex.
Together with its American partners, the CEA is engaged in cutting-edge research programs in high-energy physics, astrophysics and HPC.
In elementary particle physics, the CEA is working with DOE on a proton accelerator project led by the Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab). The CEA is also involved in the James Webb program developed by NASA in cooperation with the ESA.
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In 2022, the CEA and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) jointly won the prestigious Gordon Bell Prize for their collaborative work in high-performance computing and numerical simulation applied to relativistic plasma dynamics.
Ongoing collaborations are paving the way for ambitious strategic partnerships in microelectronics.
In the field of microelectronics and nanotechnologies, the CEA has partnered with numerous American academic and institutional players, including Caltech, UC Berkeley, Stanford University and NIST.
It is also continuing to expand its strategic industry partnerships, beginning in the 1980s with IBM. Collaborations include the dissemination of silicon-on-insulator (SOI) technology and advanced architectures for the next generation of AI computing, with partners such as GlobalFoundries and AMD. The manufacture of equipment for semiconductor production is another area of cooperation, following the 2023 announcement of the creation of a joint laboratory shared by the CEA and Applied Materials
Health technologies
The CEA has been researching health-related technologies ever since it was established. Its goal today is to capitalize on all the expertise accumulated over the years to help develop the medicine of the future, in tandem with clinical research partner organizations and hospitals. It is devising and developing smart medical technologies based on cutting-edge fundamental research to provide new generations of therapies and move current medicine toward more predictive, personalized, preventive medicine, in which the patient plays an essential role in the care pathway.