Fiscal Year 2026 TCF CLIMR Commercialization Enabling Topic Project Selections

Lead lab: Savannah River National Laboratory

Partnering labs: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory

More than fifty private fusion companies and 70+ advanced-reactor developers share substantial pre-competitive research need. These enabling technologies are ones that no company treats as proprietary, yet each must mature alone, because no instrument at the DOE National Laboratories lets them pool the work. This project builds one. The Public/Industry Pre-competitive Research (PIPR) consortium is a replicable, organizational framework that allows multiple companies and multiple National Laboratories to conduct shared pre-competitive research under a single standard Cooperative Research and Development Agreement, with no change to DOE orders. This 36-month project establishes the framework, including its agreement templates, governance, and first two operating cycles, across a demonstration pilot spanning technology environment shared by advanced fission and fusion. Industry membership dues then sustain it. Savannah River National Laboratory leads four partner laboratories, with the Electric Power Research Institute as consortium manager.

Lead labs: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and Sandia National Laboratories

Partnering labs: National Laboratory of the Rockies, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory

The Department of Energy's National Laboratories generate thousands of technologies, capabilities, and research outputs that address critical national priorities. While existing tools such as the Visual Intellectual Property Search (VIPS) and Lab Partnering Service (LPS) improve visibility into laboratory assets, successful commercialization still depends on identifying opportunities, assembling teams, and aligning the right technologies, capabilities, and partners. The Connecting Opportunities for Yielding Outcomes in Technology and Engagement (COYOTE) project creates an opportunity-centered commercialization infrastructure that helps stakeholders move from discovery to action. COYOTE combines a new Visual Entity Registry System (VERS) with the AI Commercialization Engine (ACE) to connect organizations, laboratory technologies, capabilities, and opportunities within a unified environment. The project also activates entrepreneurial support organizations, industry associations, economic development entities, and other ecosystem partners to accelerate participation and team formation. By strengthening existing DOE commercialization infrastructure, COYOTE aims to increase partnerships, improve commercialization outcomes, and establish a scalable model for commercialization across the DOE laboratory system.

Lead lab: Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Partnering labs: National Laboratory of the Rockies, Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility, Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Ames National Laboratory, Idaho National Laboratory

Department of Energy National Laboratories generate high-impact intellectual property (IP), yet many commercialization partners face challenges because successful deployment often requires sustained collaboration with the inventor for knowledge transfer, integration support, and rapid prototyping and implementation troubleshooting. The Researcher-in-Residence (RIR) Program addresses this “post-license deployment” gap by embedding researchers in companies for a time-limited, well-governed residency to help productize licensed DOE technologies. These residencies are established through structured Cooperative Research and Development Agreement (CRADA) or Strategic Partnership Project (SPP) agreements, with industry partners funding the deployments. RIR aims to shorten the path from licensed IP to deployed products, build repeatable lab–industry partnerships, and expand commercialization capability across participating laboratories. The pilot will validate the framework through at least three industry-funded RIRs, deliver intrapreneurship training (inspired by Energy I-Corps) focused on product development and deployment within commercial operating environments, and establish a playbook for a sustained program.

Lead lab: Idaho National Laboratory

Supporting labs: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, Oak Ridge National Laboratory

DOE National Laboratories maintain one of the world's most advanced software portfolios — hundreds of research-grade tools representing billions in taxpayer-funded R&D investment — yet most remains commercially inaccessible due to usability barriers. This project enables DOE Technology Transfer Offices (TTOs) to transform their software portfolio into industry-ready web applications and deploy them into software stores/websites. Three INL developed “ELEMENT” layers power this approach: AIR (AI Runner), the capability layer; FIRE (Federated Intelligence for a Research Enterprise), the agent layer comprising specialized AI agents that build, test, and secure applications; and WATER, an optional app-store delivery layer. Over 24 months, the team will convert 20+ high-value software tools across Idaho National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory into hosted commercial-grade applications — driving U.S. preference/industry usage, protecting IP from reverse engineering, enabling strategic access control for U.S. economic competitiveness, and embedding AI engineering capability directly into TTO operations.

Lead lab: Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory

Supporting labs: Sandia National Laboratories, Idaho National Laboratory, National Laboratory of the Rockies, Oak Ridge National Laboratory, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Brookhaven National Laboratory, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Fermi National Acceleratory Laboratory

To maximize the public impact of DOE-funded digital assets, this initiative scales the proven Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Idaho National Laboratory software storefront portals into a multi-lab coordinated effort. The automated and AI-enabled marketplace model removes traditional negotiation barriers, replacing them with a searchable, streamlined, "click-through" pathway for high-volume licensing of proprietary software, open-source code, and Genesis-priority datasets. Bringing additional labs onto the shared platform will enable the deployment of an aggregated complex-wide asset marketplace integrated with the Lab Partnering Service (LPS). This proposal is designed to minimize upfront cost and development time, focusing on immediate high-impact deployment.

Lead lab: Idaho National Laboratory

Supporting labs: Sandia National Laboratories, Los Alamos National Laboratory, Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility 

Many high-potential DOE laboratory technologies stall before they can compete for Technology Commercialization Fund (TCF) support—not for lack of merit, but due to modest, addressable gaps in early-stage validation. TURBO (Transforming Underutilized Research into Billion-dollar Opportunities) is a rapid, lab-driven funding mechanism that deploys small, targeted investments ($25K–$75K) to mature these technologies into the DOE commercialization pipeline. Operating as an "on-ramp to TCF," TURBO funds a portfolio of 29–36 projects across Idaho National Laboratory, Sandia National Laboratories, and Los Alamos National Laboratory, each requiring demonstrated industry interest prior to selection. TURBO does not replace TCF—it expands and strengthens its pipeline by preparing more technologies to successfully compete for downstream programs, licensing, and private-sector partnerships.