Google's machine learning algorithm gets human help in quest for fusion power

Hot on the heels of last month's nuclear fusion breakthrough comes the first results from a multi-year partnership between Google and Tri Alpha Energy, the world's largest private fusion company. The two organizations joined forces in 2014 in the hopes that Google's machine learning algorithms could advance plasma research and bring us closer to the dream of fusion power. The challenge Tri Alpha Energy faced was that the enormous experimental complexity of its plasma research involved so many variables that it was desperately in need of some advanced computing networks to help wade through the data. But it turned out that even Google didn't have the computational resources to easily address this problem. More than 1,500 New Atlas Plus subscribers directly support our journalism, and get access to our premium ad-free site and email newsletter.