Sam Altman is a major investor in Helion Energy— an American-based fusion research company and together, they are trying to build the first nuclear fusion power plant. If they succeed in doing so, they will be the first to put this technology to practical use.
In the words of Helion, Polaris is “the next big step in commercial fusion development”.
As of now, nuclear fusion is not only unstable but it requires a lot more energy input to work compared to the final outcome it produces. So in the long-term, it’s not a sustainable energy source.
However, Altman and Helion Energy are trying to change that narrative with their latest Polaris machine.
Sam Altman also took to his X account and shared a picture of the facility in which Polaris will be shortly built.
While the company agrees that they have a long way to go before nuclear fusion-produced energy can be a reality, they also have faith in their project.
Microsoft’s Deal With Helion Energy
What’s even more interesting is that Helion already has a big-ticket client in line to buy energy from them.
In May 2023, Microsoft signed a power purchase agreement with Helion, confirming that they’ll buy electricity from them in 2028. This gives the company almost 4 years to bring the project to life by which it aims to build a 50MW nuclear fusion power plant.
With the deal with Microsoft, it may have also ensured a limitless nuclear energy supply for OpenAI as well because it depends on Microsoft’s servers and resources to run its AI tools.
What makes this deal even more special is that this is the first time a company has signed a formal deal for the purchase of electricity.
Why Do We Need Nuclear Fusion?
The rising impact of global warming has been a major concern for all countries and companies. Using Nuclear Fusion— a clean source of energy could do away with this major global crisis.
But there’s another reason why Sam Altman is getting behind this project—to sustain the future of his AI tools.
Many AI tools have now been made public which drastically increased their consumption. But what a lot of us don’t know is it takes a lot of energy to keep an AI system up and running.
As of now, OpenAI gets hundreds of millions of queries every single day which approximately takes up 1GWh of energy on a daily basis. This is equivalent to the amount of energy used by 33,000 households in the US.
Generating one AI image takes as much power as charging your smartphone. In short, there’s no way AI can sustainably grow without a new energy source.
And this breakthrough seems very possible now that companies are relying on AI to grow their business. Their own needs are motivating them to heavily invest in renewable energy sources like nuclear fusion and solar energy.
Sam Altman has already invested $375 million in Helion Energy and seems pretty confident of meeting their 2028 deadline. If this project successfully goes through, it’ll not only benefit Helion but also catapult OpenAI’s growth and give it an edge over its competitors.
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