Finland joins U.S. fusion energy development

31/10/2024, 12:43

Pat Falcone, the Chief Science and Technology Officer at LLNL (on the right), and Antti Vasara, the CEO of VTT, sign a memorandum of understanding (MOU) on October 1. (Photo: Blaise Douros/LLNL)

Finland’s Technical Research Centre VTT has been selected as the first foreign partner in the U.S. Department of Energy’s ARPA-E research program. VTT has also signed a cooperation agreement with Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) in California.

The goal of the collaboration is to solve the material technology challenges for commercializing fusion energy. VTT’s AI-assisted simulation technology enables computational testing of materials under extreme conditions.

AI Accelerates Material Testing from Decades to Months

“Traditionally, developing new materials takes decades. VTT’s simulation and AI technologies shorten the development time to months,” says Research Professor Anssi Laukkanen.

The first commercial fusion reactors are expected to be completed within 5-10 years. The cooperation with LLNL covers fusion energy as well as biotechnology, critical materials, quantum computing and structural materials for the energy sector.

By leveraging advanced simulations and AI, VTT can rapidly evaluate materials to find candidates that can withstand the extreme conditions inside future fusion reactors. This could accelerate the commercialization of fusion power by overcoming one of the key materials science bottlenecks.

The translation was written by an AI system, though the original text was authored by a human. Read the original article here

Author

Dan Görgü