AI data centers are going to double their power consumption by 2030—so where's all that energy coming from? One answer is fusion, the same process that powers the sun.
In this episode of The Neuron, we're joined by Brandon Sorbom, Chief Science Officer and Co-founder of Commonwealth Fusion Systems, to explore how his company is racing to build the world's first commercial fusion power plant—and how AI is helping them get there faster.
Brandon explains why fusion has been "30 years away" for decades, what changed with high-temperature superconducting magnets, and why fusion is fundamentally safer than fission (hint: fusion is "default off"). We dive into CFS's collaborations with Google DeepMind and NVIDIA, what it takes to wrangle 10,000 unique parts, and when we might actually see fusion on the grid.
You'll learn:
• What fusion actually is (and why it's not nuclear fission)
• Why high-temperature superconducting magnets changed everything
• How AI is accelerating plasma control and simulation
• The safety profile that makes fusion regulated like an MRI, not a reactor
• When CFS expects to hit Q > 1 (net energy) and beyond
To learn more about Commonwealth Fusion Systems, visit https://cfs.energy.
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