
Google Doubles Down on Fusion Power with New Investment in TAE Technologies
TAE Technologies, a fusion power company with nearly 30 years of history, has secured another $150 million in funding, marking its 12th investment round. This latest infusion includes significant contributions from existing investors Google, Chevron, and New Enterprise Associates.
According to PitchBook data, TAE Technologies has now raised approximately $1.8 billion, solidifying its position as one of the highest funded fusion companies in the industry.
Formerly known as Tri Alpha Energy, TAE Technologies has been developing its reactor design in stealth for many years. Initially, their process involved firing two plasma balls at each other and then spinning the resulting blob with particle beams. This plasma blob, resembling a hollow cigar, generates its own magnetic field, which, in conjunction with the reactor’s magnets, keeps the plasma contained.
In April, TAE Technologies announced a significant breakthrough: they no longer needed to fire two plasma balls to initiate a reaction. Instead, they could form a plasma, heat it, and stabilize it solely using particle beams. This advancement allows for a smaller, cheaper, and more easily operable reactor.
Google’s involvement extends beyond mere investment. The tech giant has participated in two funding rounds, including a previous $250 million round in 2022, and has been collaborating with TAE Technologies since 2014. Google’s computer scientists have been working closely with TAE’s engineers to leverage machine learning (AI) to optimize the fusion device’s settings.
Prior to the use of AI, the optimization process took approximately two months, involving around 1,000 experiments. However, AI has drastically reduced the number of experiments needed by two orders of magnitude, allowing the process to be completed in just a few hours, as TAE CEO Michl Binderbauer explained in 2022.
Currently, TAE’s reactor can generate plasmas heated to 70 million degrees Celsius. The company aims to achieve 1 billion degrees Celsius for its commercial device.
Binderbauer told Axios that TAE is aiming to secure an additional $50 million before closing this funding round later this summer, with the ultimate goal of delivering electrons to the grid in the early 2030s.