The Accelerating eXtreme Environment Specs-to-Silicon — or AXESS — project will boost innovation and national competitiveness, enabling breakthroughs in quantum computing, fusion energy and particle physics.

AXESS is a collaborative endeavor leveraging the strengths of the vast DOE lab complex — including Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories — as well as university collaborators and leading industry partners such as Siemens.

The team is developing proofs of concept for DOE’s Genesis Mission — a national mission to accelerate science through AI.

Fermilab, America’s particle physics and accelerator laboratory, is well-suited to lead this type of work and extend the adoption of rapid chip design to other research areas.

“Particle detectors must function in some of the most extreme environments in terms of radiation, cryogenic temperatures and speed,” said Nhan Tran, head of Fermilab’s AI Program. “As a result, we’ve built our own custom detectors for many years, and Fermilab has established deep expertise in microelectronics for extreme environments. More recently, we’ve developed tools and methods used across the community to integrate AI onto chips. All of this coming together within the Genesis Mission is a great opportunity for Fermilab to team up with others and use AI to significantly accelerate chip design.” 

Custom-designing specialized chips that are critical to scientific research is a highly iterative, time-intensive process that can take many months — even years — to complete.

Through this proposed Genesis Mission project, the research team is building a framework that uses AI to speed up the chip-design process, dramatically reducing the time from chip specification to fabrication from months to weeks.

“The goal of this framework is to create systems in AI that help designers make the right decisions at each step of the design process, providing feedback for the next set of designers along the pipeline,” said Giuseppe Di Guglielmo, a principal engineer at Fermilab who is co-leading the project.

Traditionally, chips are designed independently in stages, each by a different set of experts. From materials used, transistor and circuit designs, chip architecture, and finally, algorithms that run on the chips, a decision made in one stage might create issues in subsequent stages. Furthermore, the tools used are typically slow and manually operated.

In contrast, researchers on this project are using AI to integrate all stages, ensuring any decision made in one stage optimizes the entire design and opens up traditional bottlenecks. They use one type of AI — large language models — to coordinate and automate manual steps and make high-level decisions, while another type — smaller surrogate models — act as stand-ins for the more complex and time-consuming models.

These surrogate AI models rapidly make predictions, such as how fast the chip will operate, the amount of power it will consume, the performance of the transistors, and so on, through the various stages. Within minutes, they evaluate millions of design options, predict the performance of each and isolate the most promising candidates before sending them through the full design process.

The initial proof of concept is focused on chips used to control quantum sensors, devices and systems. The team has achieved an approximately 500-times speedup for the design phase of the qubit readout algorithm and its implementation as firmware for field-programmable gate arrays. In addition, they have also developed more accurate transistor modeling at 4 kelvin — about minus 450 degrees Fahrenheit — important for operation in quantum environments. Another important area they are studying is radiation-hardened chips for use in high-energy particle physics experiments.

Under the auspices of the Genesis Mission, the researchers hope to expand this effort into a multi-year project.

“Siemens is putting industrial-grade hardware design solutions behind the Genesis Mission,” said David Burnette, engineering director for Catapult High-Level Synthesis, Siemens Digital Industries Software. “By uniting Siemens’ proven technologies with the breakthrough science at Fermilab and across the DOE labs, we’re accelerating a new class of chips for quantum, fusion and high-radiation environments — at a speed and scale the nation has never had.”

“We are really excited to be able to partner with other DOE labs and industries that have strong and complementary capabilities, bringing all these experts together across microelectronics and AI to make a big push forward for national success,” said Tran.

“Today represents the start of a pivotal phase for DUNE, the development of the far detector structures in South Dakota,” Fermilab Director Norbert Holtkamp said. “As we advance this historic effort, our focus remains on safety, quality and schedule — in that order — to ensure we successfully deliver on behalf of the U.S. Department of Energy, our nation and the world.”

Holtkamp added, “We at Fermilab are grateful for the support from DOE and the close collaboration of our science partners at SURF, CERN and the many international institutions that are contributing to DUNE.”

CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research, provided personnel, expertise and an in-kind contribution of 10 million pounds of steel for the detectors being assembled underground in South Dakota. This is the first time CERN has invested in infrastructure for an experiment outside of Europe.

The steel cryostat materials contributed by CERN for DUNE are scheduled to be moved underground and prepared for installation this summer. This marks an important transition from construction to detector installation and demonstrates the tangible impact of international in-kind contributions to DUNE. 

“This important milestone for DUNE is a testament to the strong scientific partnership between CERN and the United States,” said CERN Director General Mark Thomson. “CERN is playing a pivotal role in the development of its prototype detectors and providing the two enormous cryostats for the experiment itself, while the U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories likewise are playing a critical role for CERN with state-of-the-art superconducting accelerator magnets for the High-Luminosity Large Hadron Collider.”

As America’s particle physics laboratory, Fermilab is host to DUNE — a world-leading, flagship experiment that is the largest scientific project supported by the DOE Office of Science and the largest in the United States. The project will study the neutrino, one of the universe’s most abundant yet least understood subatomic particles. DUNE will send the world’s most intense neutrino beam a distance of 800 miles from Fermilab in Illinois to detectors deep underground at SURF, enabling it to explore fundamental questions about the nature of matter, the evolution of the universe and the origin of matter-antimatter asymmetry.

In addition to expanding our fundamental knowledge, neutrino research has the vast potential to drive advances across a range of fields, including national security, communications and medical imaging.

“DUNE is a powerful example of DOE’s commitment to advancing American leadership in science,” said DOE Under Secretary for Science Darío Gil, one of the attendees at today’s event. “On behalf of the entire DOE leadership team, I offer my congratulations to Fermilab and all those involved in this historic initiative, including our partners around the world who helped make this milestone possible.”

Today’s event provided attendees the opportunity to sign one of the steel beams that will be installed underground for DUNE’s first detector module, including a cryostat that will be used to cool thousands of tons of liquid argon to about minus 300 degrees Fahrenheit to capture neutrino interactions with unprecedented precision. Each of the two planned modules will be roughly the size of a five-story building, measuring 216 feet long, 62 feet wide and 60 feet high. Once complete, the two cryostats will each house 17,000 tons of liquid argon nearly a mile underground at SURF.

Mike Headley, the executive director of the South Dakota Science and Technology Authority and laboratory director at SURF, attributes the success of this project to the international collaboration behind this world-class research.

“SURF is proud to be included among the 1,500 scientific collaborators from around the world who are working alongside hundreds of additional engineers and technicians to complete this project,” Headley said. “We’re excited to see the delivery of this steel a mile underground and to assist in the construction of this colossal experiment.”  

With the start of the installation of the underground detectors, Fermilab’s priority is to deliver the first neutrino beam to DUNE by 2031. 

Grassellino will also serve as chair of the SCAC quantum subcommittee. In that role, she will help guide national efforts toward DOE’s 2028 goal for error-corrected quantum computers capable of addressing major scientific challenges. The subcommittee is also charged with exploring partnership opportunities and leveraging resources across the broad U.S. quantum ecosystem. These can include unique capabilities at national labs, innovations emerging in the private sector and resources across other federal agencies.

SCAC provides guidance to the DOE Office of Science on major scientific and technical issues, including emerging opportunities and cross-cutting initiatives. The quantum subcommittee will assess the current state of quantum information science and identify the key steps needed to advance the field at the national level.

“Anna brings a combination of scientific excellence, technical vision and leadership in large-scale quantum initiatives,” Fermilab Director Norbert Holtkamp said. “We congratulate Anna on this very important appointment and will fully support the committees and her work.”

Grassellino is an internationally recognized physicist and director of the DOE’s Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems Center, a national quantum information science research center led by Fermilab. Her work has advanced superconducting technologies for both accelerators and quantum systems, including innovations that have enabled record performance and new capabilities in superconducting devices. “I am honored to serve on SCAC and to chair the quantum subcommittee,” Grassellino said. “This is an important opportunity to help define a clear path forward for quantum information science and to accelerate progress toward fault-tolerant quantum computing.”

Fermilab’s contributions have been crucial for the superconducting accelerator for LCLS, which enables X-ray laser beams that are 10,000 times brighter with pulses that arrive up to a million times per second. The high-energy upgrade will add 23 cryomodules to the superconducting accelerator, doubling the energy of the beam and more than doubling the maximum X-ray energy.

The shipment of the Fermilab-built cryomodule — an accelerating structure that is a key part of the LCLS high-energy upgrade — was commemorated in a ceremony on April 22, attended by the directors of both laboratories, Fermilab’s Norbert Holtkamp and SLAC’s John Sarrao. The cryomodule departed Fermilab in Batavia, Illinois on April 24 and arrived at SLAC in Menlo Park, California, on April 28.

With this successful delivery, Fermilab completed its decade-long cryomodule production run for the superconducting LCLS upgrades, which was a close partnership between Fermilab, SLAC and Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Argonne National Laboratory, Cornell University, Michigan State University and Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf laboratory also made technical contributions to the upgrades. This work reinforces America’s leadership in accelerator science and its ability to deliver world-class scientific infrastructure.

“We need collaborations to build the projects necessary to answer the big scientific questions of today,” said Holtkamp, who managed the construction of the LCLS-II upgrade during his tenure as deputy director of SLAC. “SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source upgrades are the perfect example of the Department of Energy national labs working together to usher in a new era of science.”

The lab’s success in developing and building these superconducting cryomodules with rigorous safety and quality standards set the stage for the Proton Improvement Plan-II, one of Fermilab’s flagship projects. PIP-II is similarly assembling superconducting radio-frequency cryomodules to build a linear accelerator to power the forthcoming Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment. Fermilab is the host laboratory for DUNE — an international collaboration of institutions from over 35 countries — strengthening the lab’s position as a center for neutrino research.

“Our work on these LCLS upgrade projects has been a major accomplishment for the lab and was critical for us to develop the capabilities and confidence to execute PIP-II,” said Sam Posen, associate lab director for the Applied Physics and Superconducting Technology division at Fermilab.

Beyond physics, the effort has also enabled partnerships with industry, allowing Fermilab to directly apply its research to benefiting the public.

“I feel an incredible sense of pride for this wonderful team, and there’s a little bit of bittersweetness because it’s the conclusion of such a great project,” said Posen. “We’re sad to see it end, but we’re excited for all the other work that we’ve embarked on.”

Wanted: more X-rays

LCLS, the world’s first free-electron light source producing hard X-rays, turned on in 2009. Ten years later, its first upgrade, LCLS-II, was completed, resulting in a superconducting linear accelerator that significantly boosted the facility’s capability beyond anything else on the planet.

The upgraded LCLS linac uses superconducting radio-frequency technology to power an electron beam to high energies. The beam is sent through special magnets called undulators to make it jiggle, creating X-rays. As the X-rays and electron beam move together and interact, they produce coherent radiation.

“It’s sort of the same process that you have in a laser pointer, but now it’s in an accelerator,” Genfa Wu, who has led the Fermilab scope of LCLS upgrades since 2024. “And instead of producing visible light, it produces coherent photons in the X-ray spectrum.”

Those X-rays are routed to scientific end-stations along the linac. LCLS-enabled experiments address fundamental questions in energy storage, catalysis, biology, materials science and quantum physics.

The current upgrade, called LCLS-II High Energy, will double the energy of the X-ray laser. But when it was first being planned, teams realized it wouldn’t be possible to reach those higher energies in the limited space left in the linac tunnel with the current technology. So, they had to innovate.

Accelerator experts at SLAC, Jefferson Lab, Cornell University, and Fermilab combined forces to figure out how to improve the cryomodules. They targeted the superconducting accelerator cavities, the components inside the cryomodules that accelerate the particle beam. Through a process called “nitrogen doping,” they optimized the molecular makeup of the walls of the cavities, and they developed new procedures to assemble and finish the components. They also improved the cleanliness to reduce unwanted effects from any contamination on the surface, including errant dust particles.

“Fermilab didn’t just build the cryomodules — we developed the enabling technologies at the heart of these components, and we were the Designer of Record for the cryomodules,” said Posen. “We have incredible people on the Fermilab technical team who innovated and came up with brilliant new approaches.”

Once Fermilab verified the new design in 2021, they and the team at Jefferson Lab began constructing the rest of the 24 cryomodules needed for the high-energy upgrade — 23 for the linac and one spare. Jefferson Lab finished sending their 10 cryomodules last year, and now, all 14 Fermilab cryomodules are also at SLAC.

In December 2025, SLAC shut down the LCLS linac to begin the installation and commissioning process, which is expected to take about two years. Soon, the superconducting Linac Coherent Light Source will be even more powerful and able to conduct science at unprecedented energies.

Celebrating a milestone

At the Fermilab ceremony on April 22, Fermilab Director Holtkamp, SLAC Director Sarrao, and other officials and team members delivered remarks in honor of the achievement. Holtkamp, drawing on his time at SLAC, recalled some of the history of the LCLS high-energy upgrade. He, Sarrao and others signed their names on the bright orange cryomodule, commemorating the milestone and bidding the component safe travels to its home at SLAC.

“I’ve been part of the story from both ends,” said Holtkamp. “In 2013, I was part of starting it. And today, I put my signature on the final cryomodule.”

“This is a machine that stands not only as the world’s most powerful X-ray free-electron laser but really as a testament to what is possible when vision, courage and collaboration come together at the highest level,” said Fermilab Chief Technology Officer Anna Grassellino, who was instrumental in developing the novel nitrogen-doping technique when she was an associate scientist at Fermilab, at the ceremony.

“We brought together all of us — from the scientists to the technicians to the engineers — and we made it work. It was a project that required us to take risks, to challenge assumptions, to explore uncharted territory,” said Grassellino, who is also director of the Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems Center at Fermilab. “And I think what’s very important here is that what we did not only enabled this incredible machine but also opened the doors to broader impacts.”

Impacts in science and beyond

The technology Fermilab developed for the high-energy LCLS superconducting linac bolsters American competitiveness through a partnership with the U.S. company xLight, enabled by a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement in 2024. xLight reached out to Fermilab seeking a partner in developing superconducting radio-frequency, or SRF, systems for their semiconductor lithography systems. Their goal is to improve semiconductor chips that are critical to many aspects of modern life, from smartphones and computers to military and defense.

The Fermilab team is thrilled that technology developed at national labs will be transferred to industry to benefit the American public. “This is exactly what the U.S. national labs should be doing,” said Posen.

Fermilab’s work on the SRF technology also paved the way for future projects. LCLS-II High Energy cryomodules were the first SRF cryomodules that Fermilab built — perfect practice for the SRF cryomodules that the Proton Improvement Plan-II will need to assemble Fermilab’s new linear accelerator. The PIP-II linac will power the Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment at the Long Baseline Neutrino Facility, which is one of Fermilab’s highest priorities.

“There was investment in our facilities, our expertise and our capabilities, and that was so, so important for PIP-II,” said Posen. “For us to have gotten that experience and confidence was vital. The people who assembled and tested the high-energy LCLS cryomodules are now turning around and doing the same for PIP-II cryomodules.”

Fermilab’s deep involvement in the LCLS upgrades also enhances and cements the lab’s dominant position in the global SRF landscape. “The LCLS upgrades really put Fermilab on the world map that we’re one of the leading institutes to build this type of cryomodule,” said Wu. “We can say that we have the best latest, greatest technology.”

Through this partnership, the two institutions will launch a Master of Science in Physics program with a specialization in quantum science and technology. This new offering in the NIU Department of Physics will provide an interactive, hands-on educational experience for students interested in manipulating, fabricating and advancing tools and technologies that leverage key features of quantum mechanics — including superposition, entanglement and interference. Students will begin taking classes in fall 2026, and they will start their research with Fermilab in the summer of 2027. 

Officials from Fermilab and NIU met on April 29 to mark the milestone in their partnership. During the event, representatives toured Fermilab’s Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems Center, which serves as a national hub for advanced research and innovation in quantum science and technology and will be an important resource for the new program.

The tour was followed by the signing of a formal agreement, solidifying the institutions’ collaborative commitment to the innovative graduate program. The newly established specialization will offer graduate students formal instruction at the NIU and Fermilab campuses, with hands-on learning experiences at the SQMS Center. 

“We are thrilled to partner with NIU in educating the next generation of quantum scientists, right here in our backyard,” said Norbert Holtkamp, Fermilab director. “Students in this program will learn tangible skills in quantum science, skills and experiences directly connected to Fermilab’s science goals, ultimately preparing them to become the next generation of subject matter experts in the field.”

The program is an innovative partnership of a state university with a DOE national laboratory research center. By partnering with a national lab, NIU students enrolled in this program will be able to leverage the research, expertise and facilities available at the SQMS Center, one of five DOE quantum information science research centers. The centers are part of DOE’s national initiative to develop and deploy the world’s most powerful quantum computers and sensors.

“For decades, our students and faculty have had close and productive working relationships with nearby Fermilab, a global leader in quantum science and technology as well as particle and accelerator physics,” NIU President Lisa Freeman said. “We’re excited to expand our collaboration with Fermilab to include our new master’s specialization in quantum science and technology. This partnership creates a powerful new opportunity for students to study at a leading-edge facility where discovery is happening every day.”

The program was jointly developed by Fermilab and NIU, with leadership from Fermilab’s Office of Education and Public Engagement, the SQMS Center and NIU’s Department of Physics. Together, the partners designed a specialized curriculum shaped by subject matter experts and delivered by leading scientists and instructors in the field. By combining interactive coursework with hands-on research opportunities led by SQMS researchers, the program will equip students with the skills and experience needed for careers in quantum science and technology.

NIU is a research partner with SQMS, contributing and leveraging its expertise in materials science, nanofabrication, characterization and superconducting radio-frequency cavities.

More information on the master’s specialization in quantum science and technology is available on the NIU Physics graduate program page for quantum science and technology.