Google DeepMind Partners With Fusion Startup

Google DeepMind is partnering with Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) to use its Torax AI software to simulate and optimize plasma behavior inside the company's Sparc fusion reactor. TechCrunch reports: There's a reason Google keeps coming back to the problem: AI might be uniquely suited to making fusion power possible. One of the biggest challenges facing fusion startups is keeping the plasma inside a reactor hot enough for long enough. Unlike nuclear fission reactions, which are self-sustaining, fusion reactions are difficult to maintain outside of stars like the Sun. Without that sort of mass and gravity, the plasma is constantly in danger of diffusing and snuffing itself out.

In CFS's reactors, powerful magnets substitute for gravity to help corral the plasma, but they're not perfect. Reactor operators have to develop control software that can enable the device to continuously react to changing plasma conditions. Problem is, there are almost too many knobs to turn, certainly more than a human is capable of. That's the sort of problem that AI excels at. Experts have cited AI as one of the key technologies that has enabled the industry's remarkable advances over the past several years.

CFS is currently building Sparc, its demonstration reactor, in a suburb outside Boston. The device is about two-thirds completed, and when finished later in 2026, the startup is predicting that it will be the first fusion device capable of producing more power than the plant needs to run itself. Google said Torax can be used with reinforcement learning or evolutionary search models to find the "most efficient and robust paths to generating net energy." The two companies are also exploring whether AI can be used to control the reactor's operation.

Unfortunately, before it can give them results

[ebunga]

Google will kill the product.

Before you even start

[timeOday]

No, Torax AI is not an LLM

https://github.com/google-deep... [github.com]

From "The Matrix" universe...

[sonamchauhan]

"Combined with a form of fusion... the machines had found all the energy they would ever need."

So, Doc Ock was right

[NewID_of_Ami.One]

"too many knobs to turn, certainly more than a human is capable of"

So, Doc Ock was right

I continue to maintain that

[hdyoung]

Silicon Valley and computer bros should be entirely kept away from nuclear stuff. The mindset is totally different. When google screws something up, they fix it by slamming out a code update over the weekend and the consequences amount to “facing down some angry online posts”. When a product doesnt make the required 1500 percent annual profit, they abandon the hardware after two years and the consequences are, again, a few miffed users that post online about their home-automation system getting

Re:

[pauljlucas]

When something goes badly wrong with a nuclear power plant, the entire human population sees an uptick in cancer rates and a chunk of the planet gets declared uninhabitable for 10,000 years.

That's true of only fission reactors, but TFA is talking about fusion reactors. Aside from the radiation being much, much less, it has a much, much shorter half-life. Additionally, the chances of something going horribly wrong are much, much less since fusion reactors can't have a run-away chain reaction.

I read this in Analog!

[sabbede]

A few decades back, there was a story where one guy's AI was behaving like a little kid, and a team of fusion researchers had a problem with plasma hitting the sides of the chamber. So, they told the AI that plasma tasted horrible, and it dutifully kept it from touching the sides of the reactor's "mouth". An amusing short story that might be about to become a reality.

Neat!

Fusion Energy would improve our lives.

[Futurepower(R)]

Fusion Energy would, eventually, be cheaper than all other forms of energy.

Fusion Energy would stop Global Warming because the carbon dioxide and other pollution of fuels would eventually be eliminated.