Fusionality, a new company based in Lausanne, has raised $3.7 million (CHF 3 million) in pre-seed funding from Founderful and Playfair. The company, founded this year by Federico Felici and Jonas Buchli, aims to develop control systems and simulation environments for the fusion power industry.
Felici, who serves as CEO, and Buchli, the CTO, previously worked on controlling experimental fusion devices. Felici was at EPFL in Switzerland, and later at Google DeepMind, where he developed simulations and machine learning interfaces for fusion devices. Buchli also worked at Google DeepMind.
The founders identified a need for standardised control system components within the fusion industry, noting that many companies currently build their own systems from scratch. Fusionality plans to develop a suite of control systems and simulation environments that can be adapted by startups for their specific reactor designs.
While AI is expected to play an important role in future control systems, Felici stated it is not yet ready to manage an entire fusion reactor. Instead, AI is more likely to "complement or enhance or optimize" parts of the system. Fusionality is initially focusing on magnetic confinement fusion, an approach that uses electromagnets to maintain fusion fuel conditions.