Can AI help crack the code of fusion power?

It's kind of like this amazing collaboration between humans and machines.

Nuclear fusion is the reaction that’s behind the Sun’s powerful light. Here on Earth, the quixotic, expensive hunt for controlled fusion reactions generates a lot of attention and a lot of hatred.

With the click of a mouse and a loud bang, I shot jets of super-hot, ionised gas called plasma into one another at hundreds of miles per second. I had just started up TAE Technologies' $150 million plasma collider while seated in the company's control room. That photo was only a small piece of the company's extensive search for a notoriously difficult power source. I visited the company's corporate offices to discuss the most recent stage of their search, which uses an algorithm called the Optometrist.

The dream is that fusion power would offer an abundance of energy with no carbon emissions or risk of a nuclear meltdown. However, fusion power has been a long-term research goal for scientists.