{
  "abstract": "The load that a hyperscale artificial-intelligence campus imposes on the grid is native direct current, growing faster than transmission can be built, and increasingly sited where interconnection queues are measured in years. We present MetroVolt, a data-center power plant built on the Kronos deuterium–helium-3 (D–³He) tandem-mirror burner, whose direct energy converter (DEC) delivers high-voltage direct current natively—the same physical form the compute hall consumes—so that the plant couples to the load through two-to-three power-conversion stages rather than the four-to-six of a thermal generator feeding an alternating-current (AC) grid and an uninterruptible supply. At the frozen design point the burner reaches a plant energy multiplication =1.318 at fusion power 4298.5 MW with a neutron fraction of only 5.44 % of the total power—the low-activation advantage of the fuel—and a length ladder delivers net electric output of +104/+850/+2832 at 55/440/1400 m device length, with a Monte-Carlo uncertainty quantification returning P(>1)=1.0 over the design ranges. The binding physics gate is the end-plug potential: confining the central-cell ions requires a plug-to-central-cell density ratio n_p/n_c=16 built from an ion-confining potential _i=248.75 kV against a carrier temperature T_e=89.7 keV, a requirement-class target more than two orders of magnitude beyond the demonstrated tandem-mirror record and retired only by a dedicated plug-potential experiment; direct energy conversion is a bounded upside lever, taken at a deliberately conservative module efficiency η_DEC=0.49, not the closure mechanism. A second, independent modelling choice—the synchrotron radiation transport—is shown to be equally load-bearing: the same machine reads =0.39 optically thin, =1.32 under the reflective-cavity Albajar–Fidone–Johner model adopted as canon, and =4.56 under Trubnikov, so that a first-wall reflectivity R_wall0.83 is a hard specification, not a convenience. Reduced to the data-center product, the direct-DC path raises the source-to-chip efficiency from 75.9 % (conventional AC) to 88.1 % (DEC-direct medium-voltage DC); a plasma-independent electronic buffer follows synchronized GPU training swings at 80 MW s^-1—about 105× any plasma throttle—while holding the DC bus to ±0.40 %; waste-heat-driven absorption cooling takes the facility from PUE 1.35 to 1.17; and the neutron-lean 90 %-aneutronic burn licenses against a mobile tritium source term of 3.6 g, roughly 275× below a deuterium–tritium plant of the same power. We separate throughout what is robust—the neutron-source performance and the power-electronics topology—from what is conditional on retiring the plug gate. This is a comprehensive, review-length treatment: twenty-six figures, full governing-equation derivations, a GPU-accelerated computational methodology, a global sensitivity and uncertainty study, and a benchmarking section against the published tandem-mirror, direct-conversion, synchrotron, and data-center-distribution literature. Key results (frozen anchors): T_e = 89.7 keV; P_fus = 4298.5 MW; P_n = 233.95 MW; T_i = 90 keV; P_ax = 2719.7 MW. Methods & codes: Kronos toolkit, OpenMC. Live verification: 16 gate validator(s) with live-recompute cards (11 reproduced, 5 revised). See the Verification section and data/verification.csv. Related: Paper page · De-risking register · 3D model · Learn more about Kronos Part of the 2026 Kronos publication series; independently re-run and stamped in the Kronos de-risking register (DOI 10.5281/zenodo.22645689). All numerical values are frozen design-point anchors; see the register. Public research artifact. No proprietary, financial, or supply-chain information is included.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Kronos Fusion Energy"
  ],
  "article_type": null,
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 2,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "Priyanca Ford",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-0395-1752"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "G L Kulcinski",
      "orcid": "0000-0001-5635-4906"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/fzqtqvaezb436.bib",
  "cited_by": 50,
  "doi": "10.5281/zenodo.22645694",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "fzqtqvaezb436",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://www.kronosfusionenergy.com/publications/metrovolt-burner.html",
  "language": "en",
  "licence": "CC-BY",
  "licence_label": "CC BY",
  "licence_source": "journal",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "openalex",
      "3106|Magnetic confinement fusion research"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7212011214",
  "pdf_url": "https://www.kronosfusionenergy.com/publications/papers/metrovolt-burner.pdf",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-09-07",
  "publisher": "European Organization for Nuclear Research",
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/fzqtqvaezb436.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:17:18Z",
      "native_id": "W7212011214",
      "source": "openalex",
      "url": "https://www.kronosfusionenergy.com/publications/metrovolt-burner.html"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "physics",
      "origin": "openalex:3106|Magnetic confinement fusion research",
      "subfield": "high-energy"
    }
  ],
  "title": "The MetroVolt Data-Center Burner: Direct-DC Campus Power, Q_E Closure, and the Plug Requirement in a Low-Neutron D–³He Tandem Mirror",
  "title_text": "The MetroVolt Data-Center Burner: Direct-DC Campus Power, Q_E Closure, and the Plug Requirement in a Low-Neutron D–³He Tandem Mirror",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-06T13:20:23Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/fzqtqvaezb436",
  "venue": "Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)",
  "versions": []
}