Sometimes founders search high and low for the right startup idea; other times, it comes to them. Federico Felici and Jonas Buchli are two of the lucky ones.
Over and over again, they heard the same refrain from fusion companies: "We would ideally buy many of the components to make our control system, but there isn't really anybody providing them—and especially there isn't anybody who speaks the language of fusion," Felici told TechCrunch.
For years, the two founders have worked on developing new ways to control experimental fusion devices. "We spent quite a lot of our time solving exactly the problems that our customers need to solve," he said. "It felt like the right time."
To capitalize on the opportunity, Felici and Buchli founded Lausanne-based Fusionality this year and quickly raised a $3.7 million (CHF 3 million) pre-seed round from Founderful and Playfair. Felici serves as CEO, and Buchli as CTO.
The Emerging Fusion Supply Chain
Fusionality is part of an emerging supply chain that has popped up to serve the burgeoning fusion power industry. Some startups, like Kyoto Fusioneering, are developing components that will help fusion companies turn their engineering breakthroughs into electricity for the grid, while others are existing manufacturers with the precision-manufacturing skills required to produce high-tolerance parts.
Yet few companies specialize in the hardware and software required to control fusion reactors themselves. "Across the industry, many companies make their own control systems from scratch," Felici said. "But actually, 80% of each company's control system is really exactly the same."
The Complexity of Plasma Control
Fusion power plants generate electricity by harnessing the energy released when two atoms fuse, a process that is most likely to occur in a superheated plasma. However, plasmas are fickle; maintaining the proper temperature, shape, and fuel level requires split-second decision-making.
The control systems used to sustain these conditions are complex to develop and deploy, but much of the fundamental physics is consistent across different reactor designs. Fusionality plans to build on this commonality to offer a suite of control systems and simulation environments that startups can fine-tune to match their specific configurations.
A Deep Background in AI and Fusion
Felici and Buchli met while teaching AI to control an experimental tokamak—a donut-shaped device researchers use to study fusion power. At the time, Felici was working at EPFL in Switzerland, which hosts one such tokamak, while Buchli was at Google DeepMind. Later, Felici moved to Google DeepMind himself, where he developed simulations and machine learning interfaces for fusion devices.
Felici believes AI will "play an important role in future control systems," but he is cautious about its immediate scope. "I wouldn't be somebody who advocates for AI to take the role of controlling the entire fusion reactor," he said. Today, AI is more likely to "complement or enhance or optimize" specific parts of the system, he added.
Current Focus: Magnetic Confinement
For now, Fusionality is concentrating on magnetic confinement fusion—an approach that uses powerful electromagnets to keep fusion fuel dense and hot enough to sustain a power-producing reaction. By providing smarter, more integrated control tools for this dominant fusion branch, the startup aims to help the industry accelerate its path to commercial viability and, ultimately, to the grid.
via TechCrunch