Recently, Proxima Fusion, a German nuclear fusion start-up, announced that it has raised $21.7 million (about 157 million yuan at the real-time exchange rate) in a seed round to build the first generation of fusion power plants based on high-temperature superconductor quasi-isodynamic (QI) stellators.
In 2023, Proxima Fusion spun off from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Germany and became an independent company, founded by former engineers and scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Germany, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the United States, and Google.
Headquartered in Munich, Germany, the company aims to provide the clearest and most robust path to fusion energy with the QI stellarator.
（来源：Proxima Fusion）
In 2015, the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics team built the world's largest stellarumer, Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X), with a total of 1.3 billion euros in funding from the German government and the European Union.
It is a prototype of the QI stellarator, employing modular superconducting coil technology to enable the continuous operation of a stable plasma and validate the viability of the stellaratom as a fusion reactor concept.
Building on the W7-X technology accumulation, Proxima Fusion aims to elevate the W7-X to an industrial level and "lead Europe into a new era of clean energy."
The sun's energy comes from the internal fusion reaction, which fuses two lighter nuclei to produce a heavier nucleus. The energy released in this process can be captured, ultimately providing energy to households, industries, and countries.
In order to be able to achieve nuclear fusion on Earth, scientists confine high-energy ionized substances, called "plasma", by means of magnetic fields. There have long been high expectations for the unlimited, clean energy available through nuclear fusion.
According to the Fusion Industry Association, global nuclear fusion companies have attracted more than $6 billion in investment in 2023. At the same time, it must also be noted that achieving sustainable and commercially viable fusion remains a huge challenge.
Proxima Fusion has come up with a solution based on engineering and simulation and advanced computing to address these challenges.
The QI stellarator is a magnetic confinement fusion device that promises to provide infinite energy, utilizing a special magnetic field configuration to stably control high-temperature plasma.
The core advantage of the QI stellar simulator is that the toroidal current is cancelled at zero, resulting in unique stability and is carbon-free, safe, and effective.
图丨Proxima Fusion团队（来源：Proxima Fusion）
Francesco Sciortino, co-founder and CEO of Proxima Fusion, received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and previously worked on the Tokamak Project.
"The new fusion method is possible because of the ability to use artificial intelligence to simulate the behavior of plasma, bringing it closer to a viable nuclear fusion prospect," he told the media. ”
It is important to understand that tokamaks and stellarators are two ways to achieve constraints by creating a "magnetic field cage" in a ring device. The concept of a stellarladder was proposed in the 50s of the 20th century, and its initial challenge was that the computing resources were insufficient to fully optimize these complex coil designs.
Tokamaks combine an external electromagnetic system with a large current in the plasma, while an stellarumer uses a complex external electromagnetic system. Also, the stellarator has more degrees of freedom, which means that it can be optimized in an efficient way, while the design of the tokamak is relatively inflexible.
Although the design of the stellarator is more complex than that of the tokamak, it offers advantages for fusion power plants: it can operate in a steady state, is less difficult to operate, and provides an effective solution to manage excessive heat loads on the surface of the material.
"Stellaroids can solve the key problem of the tokamak, really scale up, radically improve the stability of the plasma, and achieve high performance at steady state," Shoreno explained to the media. ”
（来源：Proxima Fusion）
Benjamin Erhart, general partner at early-stage venture capital firm UVC Partners, commented to the media:
"Proxima Fusion combines achieved scientific milestones with best-in-class engineering quality. Our strengths in automated design, AI engineering, high-temperature superconducting magnets, and rapid team growth give us confidence in its ability to turn steady-state fusion energy into reality." ”
According to publicly available information, in 2023, the company has received €7 million in pre-seed financing. The seed round of Proxima Fusion was led by Swiss venture capital firm Redalpine, with participation from Bayern Kapital, a venture capital firm backed by the German state of Bavaria, the German government-backed High-Tech and Climate Fund, and the Max Planck Foundation.
Going forward, in addition to accelerating the development of key supporting technologies in hardware and software, Proxima Fusion will use seed funding to further expand its collaboration with world-class engineers and physicists.
While this is a fusion startup that has only been around for a year, Shoreno believes Proxima Fusion's operations have grown beyond expectations.
"In April 2023, we started work on engineering optimization and high-temperature superconducting magnets," he told the media. A year later, we are leading Europe to a new phase in stellar simulator development, making great strides in integrated design with the StarFinder framework. ”
Proxima Fusion mentions on its website that it plans to develop a high-performance stellaratom in 2031 to demonstrate its production capacity as a clean energy source, and expects to build its first fusion power plant between 2030 and 2039.
Resources:
https://www.proximafusion.com/press-news/proxima-fusion-raises-eu20m-seed-to-accelerate-timeline-to-fusion-power
https://www.proximafusion.com/press-news/a-european-champion-for-fusion
https://tech-gate.org/2024/04/09/proxima-fusion-raises-21m-to-create-on-its-stellarator-technique-to-nuclear-fusion/
https://www.ipp.mpg.de/w7x
https://www.ianhogarth.com/blog/2023/5/29/a-new-european-champion-for-fusion-proxima-spins-out-from-max-planck
https://techcrunch.com/2024/04/09/proxima-fusion-raises-21m-to-build-on-its-stellarator-approach-to-nuclear-fusion/
Support: Zou Mingzhi
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