Nuked 
Hello followers! Today, we’re diving into some exciting tech news about fusion energy and one of its big players—TAE Technologies.
Fusion energy development isn’t cheap or quick, but TAE Technologies just secured another massive $150 million funding round. Major investors included Google, Chevron, and New Enterprise Associates. This marks TAE’s twelfth investment round, bringing its total funding to about $1.8 billion, making it one of the top-funded fusion companies worldwide.
Originally called Tri Alpha Energy, TAE spent years working secretly on its reactor design. They started by firing plasma balls and spinning the resulting blob with particle beams, creating a magnetic field that kept the plasma contained. Recently, they announced a breakthrough: no longer needing to fire plasma balls—just forming, heating, and stabilizing plasma with particle beams alone. This simplifies the reactor, lowering costs and making it easier to operate.
Google has been involved with TAE since at least 2022, investing in two rounds and collaborating extensively. Since 2014, Google scientists and TAE engineers have used AI and machine learning to optimize the fusion process, cutting down experimentation from months to hours, significantly speeding up development. TAE aims to heat plasmas to 1 billion degrees Celsius in its commercial device, far above the 70 million degrees achievable today.
Looking ahead, CEO Michl Binderbauer hopes to raise additional funds before summer’s end and plans to start putting electrons on the grid by the early 2030s. This progress hints that fusion power may become a reality sooner than we thought!
