Explode! Microsoft will use 'artificial sun' nuclear fusion power supply in 2028, Skynet AI is coming

Tremble, humans!

In 2028, Microsoft will rely on "controllable nuclear fusion" to power super-powerful AI.

On Wednesday local time, nuclear fusion startup Helion announced that Microsoft has agreed to purchase power from the first nuclear fusion power plant.

It is worth mentioning that OpenAI founder Sam Altman is also an early investor in this company. What does this mean?

The strongest artificial intelligence with unlimited energy...

Maybe, Skynet came in 1975, but none of us knew it.

Of course, such an important cooperation is indispensable without Altman's forwarding, "Microsoft became Helion's first customer, which is the first commercial transaction for nuclear fusion energy."

NVIDIA scientist Jim Fan said, "Self-hosted artificial intelligence energy systems are coming."

Microsoft's "artificial sun" is a big gamble

Scientists have long been studying how to use nuclear fusion to generate electricity, but there have always been many obstacles in overcoming technical challenges.

If the "artificial sun" can really be realized and commercialized, it means that mankind will have unlimited energy and completely solve the energy crisis.

Five years later, controllable nuclear fusion will be commercially available. Is Helion’s reputation a bit exaggerated?

If this bold promise cannot be realized, Microsoft will have to pay compensation.

Because so far, no company, or even any country, has won this "Holy Grail" of clean energy.

Well, no matter what you say, Microsoft is full of confidence.

Microsoft President Brad Smith said, "If we are not optimistic about the development momentum of our engineering technology, we will simply not sign it."

Helion expects to bring its fusion power generation device online by 2028 and achieve the target of generating 50 megawatts or more within the agreed year.

#50 megawatt, what is the concept?

When the fusion device is fully capable of producing 50 megawatts of energy, it will be able to power approximately 40,000 local households.

Correspondingly, Microsoft will also pay electricity bills based on the amount of electricity generated. However, the specific price has not been disclosed yet.

A person familiar with the matter said that Helion aims to reduce the cost to 1 cent per kilowatt-hour, with 1 kilowatt-hour of electricity costing only 0.07 yuan.

As far as current progress is concerned, Helion is building a prototype that will reportedly demonstrate the ability to generate electricity through nuclear fusion next year. This is even earlier than 5 years...

Helion was founded in 2013, approx. With 156 employees, the cooperation with the giant Microsoft is of great significance to it.

Helion wrote in a statement that the cooperation between Helion and Microsoft is an important milestone for the entire nuclear fusion industry. Not only have we advanced the timetable for bringing commercial fusion energy to market, we have also supported Microsoft’s goal of becoming carbon negative by 2030.

What if Microsoft could really use nuclear fusion for the first time on Earth?

The development of AI will directly explode. By then, science fiction movies will no longer be science fiction.

As Jim Fan said,

The entire system can be self-hosted: artificial intelligence researches new nuclear fusion technology to improve its own energy and accelerate training to make itself a better nuclear physics researcher...

Microsoft believes that the biggest innovations in the next decade may be in the fields of fusion energy, artificial intelligence and quantum computing.

These can all intersect with each other. Just like artificial intelligence and quantum computing, both require large amounts of electricity, and nuclear fusion can provide this electricity.

Currently, Microsoft has made a fortune in artificial intelligence, and nuclear fusion has become the next opportunity.

Sam Altman once invested US$375 million in Helion, which foreign media reports called the largest investment "in history."

Altman said in a recent interview that our goal is not to make the coolest technology demonstration in the world, but to provide power to the world, and it is extremely low-cost power.

In his view, Helion and OpenAI are equally important and are both relevant components of the future of mankind.

He hopes Helion will be able to deliver electricity to the grid by 2028 and says he will have to Visited Helion Company once and provided advice to some of the company's managers.

This also reflects Altman’s ambitious goal: to develop energy and extend life. This, together with artificial intelligence, will have a very important positive impact on human life.

To date, Helion has raised more than $577 million in private capital.

Demo to be launched next year

In December last year, the U.S. Department of Energy announced a major research breakthrough. Researchers from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, The energy produced by the fusion reaction exceeds the energy produced by firing a laser at the target.

This latest breakthrough further advances the research on nuclear fusion.

The process of splitting atoms in nuclear fission power plants provides nearly 20% of the electricity in the United States. But nuclear fusion systems can use the energy released when hydrogen atoms combine to form helium to generate electricity.

Currently, for Helion, even though there are many difficult challenges ahead, the development momentum is still strong.

Helion co-founders (from left to right): Chief Technology Officer Chris Pihl, CEO David Kirtley, Director of Research George VoTroubek The optimal temperature is about 2 times this temperature.

The sun can produce huge amounts of energy and can be called the "ultimate nuclear fusion machine."

To translate this process to a scale feasible on Earth, engineers needed to build a device. In this device, they can create and sustain a superheated gas called a plasma.

In plasma, light atomic nuclei can collide together and fuse, thereby producing energy. In addition, the system must efficiently capture energy for the grid.

For many fusion companies, they are looking to the rare hydrogen isotope tritium to help fuel reactions, but Helion plans to use helium 3, a rare gas used in quantum computing.

Helion CEO David Kirtley said Helion’s technology will have this capability.

Helion’s process of creating nuclear fusion and planning to capture electricity to send to the grid

It is said that Helion will complete the construction of the seventh-generation fusion device "Polaris" this year and put it online for demonstration next year.

This is a technology that uses a "pulsed high-power magnet" to achieve nuclear fusion. It aims to use the high magnetic field generated by the magnet to compress the fuel to produce a nuclear fusion reaction to produce low-cost Clean electricity.

It is expected that by then any technical difficulties will have been overcome and Polaris will be producing net electricity, demonstrating the feasibility of Helion's commercial product.

Before 2028, Helion will build a new reactor the same size as Polaris and transmit energy to the grid. The installation will be housed in a 30,000-square-foot building. The company has not yet announced its exact location.

One end of the nuclear fusion device

Netizen: First It has been realized, and then

Regarding the commercialization of nuclear fusion in 2028, netizens have said that this is just hype.

I feel that this still depends on the progress of the academic community as an indicator. How can the company guarantee that it will be possible in five years without even saying a word about it now?

It is too early for the application of nuclear fusion. The corresponding basic materials and technologies have not yet been developed. Is it still mainly hype?

Wake me up again when they can "actually" produce more energy than they put in. It comes down to it. All these press releases and nonsense coming from these startups are just for hype.

Now, they want to build on the same hype with nuclear fusion.

People who are not engaged in industry understand problems such as nuclear fusion as long as there is a "configuration" and "idea" ”, you can break through. But in fact, if nuclear fusion is to be commercialized, every component will be difficult, and it will be an order of magnitude or more higher than what humans can achieve today. This is different from software development like ChatGPT, because the rules of the program are completely under human control.

But some netizens said that it must be technical, and like OpenAI, they generally don’t shout loudly 5 years in advance.

Do you think Helion is just bragging, or does he really have a big weapon? After all, there is a precedent for OpenAI, and we cannot dismiss this revolutionary technological breakthrough too lightly now.

Some netizens also gave it a try,

50 megawatts of electricity need to be produced reliably by 2028. Even assuming 50MW*24h*365=438KMWh, it is equivalent to approximately 2% of the annual consumption relative to 18.64 million MWh.

##In 28 years, nuclear fusion was used Will Microsoft achieve super evolution again?

The above is the detailed content of Explode! Microsoft will use 'artificial sun' nuclear fusion power supply in 2028, Skynet AI is coming. For more information, please follow other related articles on the PHP Chinese website!