With a recent AI breakthrough, nuclear fusion is one step closer to becoming a reality

With a recent AI breakthrough, nuclear fusion is one step closer to becoming a reality.

The green energy revolution is approaching.

The first successful application of a cutting-edge artificial intelligence system to shape the superheated hydrogen plasmas within a fusion reactor has brought the green energy revolution promised by nuclear fusion a step closer.

The successful study suggests that AI could be a game-changer in the long-running search for nuclear fusion-generated electricity, bringing its introduction to modern power networks tantalizingly closer.

"I believe AI will play a significant part in future tokamak control and fusion science in general," Federico Felici, a physicist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Lausanne, says.

Artificial intelligence

The tokamak is principally controlled by 19 magnetic coils that can be used to shape and position the hydrogen plasma inside the fusion chamber, while directing an electric current through it, Felici explained.

The coils are frequently controlled by a collection of independent computerized controllers — one for each aspect of the plasma in an experiment — that are designed using advanced control engineering calculations based on the parameters being investigated. According to him, the new AI system was able to manipulate the plasma with just one controller.

The AI – a DeepMind-developed "deep reinforcement learning" (RL) system – was first trained on tokamak simulations, which are a cheaper and safer alternative to the real thing.

However, computer simulations are slow: simulating just a few seconds of real-time tokamak operation takes several hours. Furthermore, because the TCV's experimental situation can change from day to day, the AI developers required to account for those changes in the simulations.

However, once the simulated training was complete, the AI was connected to the actual tokamak.

The TCV can maintain a superheated hydrogen plasma for up to 3 seconds at temperatures of more than 216 million degrees Fahrenheit (120 million degrees Celsius). After then, it will take 15 minutes.