The Google-backed firm taught a reinforcement learning algorithm to control the fiery plasma inside a tokamak nuclear fusion reactor.

THE INSIDE OF a tokamak—the doughnut-shaped vessel designed to contain a nuclear fusion reaction—presents a special kind of chaos. Hydrogen atoms are smashed together at unfathomably high temperatures, creating a whirling, roiling plasma that’s hotter than the surface of the sun. Finding smart ways to control and confine that plasma will be key to unlocking the potential of nuclear fusion, which has been mooted as the clean energy source of the future for decades. At this point, the science underlying fusion seems sound, so what remains is an engineering challenge. “We need to be able to heat this matter up and hold it together for long enough for us to take energy out of it,” says Ambrogio Fasoli, director of the Swiss Plasma Center at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne in Switzerland.

That’s where DeepMind comes in. The artificial intelligence firm, backed by Google parent company Alphabet, has previously turned its hand to video games and protein folding, and has been working on a joint research project with the Swiss Plasma Center to develop an AI for controlling a nuclear fusion reaction.

By Sierra Mitchell

Two clear trends are developing in the automotive space: The first is the move away from internal-combustion engines and toward battery-electric vehicles, and the second is the pursuit of autonomy. Cars that can drive themselves come from the likes of Waymo and other companies, while automakers such as Tesla boast about their driver-assistance features. 

One company planning on tinkering at the intersection of these trends is called Lightmatter, which is going to build the brains of a self-driving prototype vehicle. The company’s microchips set them apart from others in the tech industry: The chips that will do the computing for this experimental self-driving car will be light-based, unlike the traditional chips that employ electrons and transistors. 

The company, in conjunction with Harvard University and Boston University, has received $4.8 million in funding from a government organization called IARPA. That stands for Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity, and can be thought of as an analog of DARPA—which funds defense-related research—but from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. 

Lightmatter, unlike outfits such Zoox or Rivian, is definitely not a car or transportation company, so don’t expect to see Lightmatter-branded vehicles passing you on the highway. It’s a chip company, and the photonic chips they make are specifically geared towards powering artificial intelligence computations in an efficient way.