Project will use AI and data tools to accelerate path to commercial reactors
Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) has announced plans to collaborate with technology companies Nvidia and Siemens to develop a digital twin of its Sparc prototype fusion machine.
The companies said in an announcement during a keynote address at the CES technology show in Las Vegas, Nevada, on 6 January that their work will apply artificial intelligence (AI) and data and project management tools to accelerate commercial fusion.
A statement said the digital twin will use data from the Siemens Xcelerator portfolio of industrial software, which includes the Designcenter NX for advanced product engineering, along with Teamcenter product lifecycle management (PLM) tools.
CFS uses those tools to create, catalogue, and process machine designs and assemblies. The designs and assemblies can then be used in CFS’s modelling and simulation workflows.
CFS will use Nvidia Omniverse libraries and OpenUSD to integrate data with classical and AI-powered physics models to create the digital twin of Sparc.
This virtual replica of Sparc will provide CFS with a user-friendly way to run simulations, test hypotheses, and quickly compare the experimental results from the machine to the simulations. This ability to rapidly analyse data and iterate “will speed CFS’ efforts to make fusion energy a commercial reality”, the statement said.
Compressing Years Of Work Into Weeks
“CFS will be able to compress years of manual experimentation into weeks of virtual optimisation using the digital infrastructure developed by Nvidia and Siemens,” said Bob Mumgaard, co-founder and chief executive officer of CFS.
“Through this collaboration, we’re demonstrating how AI and integrated digital engineering can accelerate progress from design to grid power. This will allow us to transform how we build and operate fusion machines in the race to commercial fusion.”
CFS is also using Siemens’ digital tools to improve the efficiency of its manufacturing processes and operations at the company’s magnet factory in Devens, Massachusetts.
Del Costy, president and managing director, Americas, Siemens Digital Industries Software, said: “Fusion is complex, but data doesn’t lie. When you aggregate real manufacturing intelligence, apply AI, and run thousands of scenarios, you remove guesswork and accelerate innovation. This is the future of industrial engineering.”
Target Is For First Plasma This Year
CFS, which is backed by Bill Gates’s technology fund Breakthrough Energy Ventures, aims to produce energy through a tokamak fusion process using high-temperature superconducting magnets developed in collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The company is working to build the Sparc prototype fusion machine at its headquarters in Devens, Massachusetts. Sparc is a compact, high-field, net fusion energy device that would be the size of existing mid-sized fusion devices, but with a much stronger magnetic field. It is predicted to produce 50-100 MW of fusion power.
Sparc is expected to produce its first plasma in 2026 and net fusion energy shortly after, demonstrating for the first time a design that will produce more power than consumed.
Technology giant Google has already agreed to buy power from the CFS Arc power plant being planned in Virginia. The 400-MW Arc could be the world's first grid-scale fusion power plant, CFS has said.
CFS, founded in 2018 and spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), has raised nearly $3bn in funding. The company raised $863m in its latest funding round, with support from NVentures, Nvidia’s venture capital arm.
Sparc is expected to demonstrate for the first time a design that will produce more power than consumed. Courtesy CFS.
