Commonwealth Fusion uses digital twin and AI for nuclear fusion

US company Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) has announced a partnership with chip manufacturer Nvidia and technology group Siemens at the CES electronics trade fair. This is intended to help advance the commercialization of nuclear fusion.

CFS, a spin-off from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), aims to bring the first commercial fusion power plant online in the early 2030s. The company is currently building a demonstration facility called Sparc in Devens, Massachusetts. It is intended to be the first fusion facility to release more energy than it consumes.

Together with Nvidia and Siemens, CFS wants to create a digital twin of Sparc. Siemens’ design software NX and Nvidia’s Omniverse libraries will be used for this. CFS will be able to conduct simulations, test hypotheses, and later quickly compare the machine’s experimental results with the simulations on the digital twin of Sparc, the company announced. In addition, CFS plans to use artificial intelligence (AI) for development.

Accelerating progress

“Through this collaboration, we are demonstrating how AI and integrated digital engineering can accelerate progress, from design to grid connection,” said Bob Mumgaard, one of CFS's founders and CEO.

CFS intends to operate nuclear fusion through magnetic confinement in a tokamak. In this process, plasma heated to 100 million degrees Celsius is held by a complex system of magnetic fields. Only at these temperatures is it possible to overcome the repulsion of two positively charged hydrogen atomic nuclei and fuse them into a helium nucleus.

CFS has just installed the first superconducting magnet in the cryostat. Mumgaard announced this at CES, as US online magazine Techcrunch reports. A total of 18 are planned. According to Mumgaard, the last magnet is to be installed in the summer. Sparc is then scheduled to go into operation in 2027.

(wpl)