Google and nuclear power technology outfit Tri Alpha Energy (TAE) have hatched a new computer algorithm that could be a springboard to development of next-generation nuclear fusion, giving a further filip to the IT giant’s wider clean-energy ambitions.
The Optometrist algorithm, a “stochastics perturbation model” that is the first fruit of a multi-year collaboration between Google and TAE which began in 2014 to use machine learning to advance plasma research, revealed a way of increasing heating power within a field-reversed configuration plasma generator that reduced energy loss by more than 50% and so boosted total energy output.
