Next-Generation Algorithms Could Move Fusion From The Lab To The Grid
IBM, Thursday, April 23rd, 2026
In collaboration with the UK's Atomic Energy Authority and STFC Hartree Centre, IBM has built the world's first AI foundation model for fusion plasma, the superheated gas powering the Sun that might someday provide clean, safe, and abundant energy here on Earth.
In the quest to replace fossil fuels with cleaner forms of energy, few options are as alluring as nuclear fusion, the reaction powering the Sun and all the stars in the universe. Fusion is carbon-free, and unlike solar or wind, it can be harnessed continuously, day or night.
To make fusion work on Earth, hydrogen isotopes are fused at temperatures hotter than the Sun's core to form plasma in a kind of magnetized bottle called a tokamak. Extracting useful energy from this ring of superheated plasma is a highly challenging control problem: the plasma must be kept hot and dense enough to release more energy from the reaction than went in - a holy grail known as 'breakeven,' while maintaining enough stability to avoid damaging the machine.