Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique

The Commissariat à l'Énergie Atomique or CEA, the Atomic Energy Commission, in English, is a French "public establishment of an industrial and commercial character" whose mission is to develop all applications of atomic energy, both civilian and military. CEA is headed by the high-commissioner for atomic energy (currently Bernard Bigot), and by a board headed by the general administrator. The missions of the CEA are equivalent to those of the United States Department of Energy.

CEA was created in 1945; since then, the successive high-commissioners have been Frédéric Joliot-Curie, Francis Perrin, Jacques Yvon, Jean Teillac, Robert Dautray, René Pellat and the incumbent.

It conducts fundamental and applied research into many areas, including the design of nuclear reactors, the manufacturing of integrated circuits, the use of radionucleides for curing illnesses, seismology and tsunami propagation, the safety of computerized systems...

It has one of the top 10 supercomputers in the world, the Tera-10.

It is divided into 4 directions, or divisions:

the division of technological research;
the division of life sciences;
the division of sciences of matter;
the division of military applications, which builds the nuclear weapons of the French military and designs the power plants of the nuclear submarines of the French Navy