AI Software Addresses Fusion Energy Development Bottleneck
- tech360.tv
- 3 hours ago
- 2 min read
A Chinese start-up is addressing a fusion energy software bottleneck with artificial intelligence. Its simulator, FusionAlpha, helps developers test reactor designs on computers. This occurs prior to committing to expensive physical experiments.
Fusion energy, long considered a promise of limitless power, has often appeared just beyond reach. Fusion theorist and plasma simulation scientist Xie Huasheng believes improved software offers a way to shorten the industry’s costly trial-and-error cycle.
Xie stated that fusion simulation software has faced an "impossible triangle" dilemma. He explained that current tools are either accurate but computationally expensive, fast but unreliable, or simple but too crude for accurate extrapolation and reactor design guidance.
Xie indicated that the industry is at a turning point. He noted sharp improvements in the performance of more than a dozen physics design and analysis models, attributed to refined mathematical structures and artificial intelligence advances. These advancements, including refined mathematical structures and artificial intelligence advances, have improved model performance, and artificial intelligence specifically has improved research efficiency.
In April, Xie founded VeloAlpha, a Beijing-based start-up. VeloAlpha is developing FusionAlpha, the simulator designed for pre-experiment computer testing of reactor designs.
He compared FusionAlpha to electronic design automation, or EDA, software in the semiconductor industry. EDA allows chipmakers to test and optimise designs long before production at a wafer foundry.
Fusion is the reaction powering the sun, releasing vast energy when light atom nuclei collide and merge. To replicate this on Earth, scientists must heat fuel into extremely hot, electrically charged plasma. This plasma then needs to be held stable to sustain the reaction.
VeloAlpha, a Beijing-based start-up, developed FusionAlpha to address the fusion energy software bottleneck.
FusionAlpha is a simulator that helps developers test reactor designs on computers, reducing the need for expensive physical experiments.
Fusion theorist Xie Huasheng founded VeloAlpha in April, noting that the performance of physics design and analysis models has improved sharply, driven by refined mathematical structures and advances in artificial intelligence.
Source: SCMP
