Google DeepMind Alumni Are Building Tools to Accelerate Fusion Power for the Grid
Sometimes founders search endlessly for the right startup idea, while other times it simply arrives. For Federico Felici and Jonas Buchli, developing Fusionality fusion power control technology turned out to be exactly that kind of opportunity.
Over and over again, the two founders heard the same frustration echoed by fusion companies: “We would ideally buy many of the components to make our control system, but there isn’t really anybody providing them, and especially there isn’t anybody who speaks the language of fusion,” Felici told TechCrunch.
For years, the pair had already been developing new ways to control experimental fusion devices. “We spent quite a lot of our time solving exactly the problems that our customers need to solve,” Felici said. “It felt like the right time.”
From Research to a New Startup
To capitalize on that opportunity, Felici and Buchli founded Lausanne-based Fusionality earlier this year, quickly raising a $3.7 million pre-seed round from investors Founderful and Playfair. Felici now serves as the company’s CEO, with Buchli taking on the role of CTO.
Fusionality is entering an emerging supply chain that has developed alongside the broader fusion power industry. Some startups, like Kyoto Fusioneering, focus on developing components that help fusion companies convert engineering breakthroughs into actual grid electricity, while others are established manufacturers capable of producing the high-precision parts fusion reactors require.
Yet remarkably few companies specialize specifically in the hardware and software needed to control fusion reactors themselves. “Across the industry, many companies make their own control systems from scratch,” Felici explained. “But actually, 80% of each company’s control system is really exactly the same.”
Why Fusion Reactors Need Specialized Control Systems
Fusion power plants generate electricity by harnessing the energy released when two atoms fuse together, a reaction more likely to occur within superheated plasma. However, plasma remains notoriously difficult to manage, requiring split-second decision-making to maintain the proper temperature, shape, and fuel density needed to sustain the reaction.
The control systems responsible for maintaining these precise conditions are inherently complex to develop and deploy, but much of the underlying physics remains consistent across different reactor designs. Fusionality fusion power control technology plans to build directly on that shared foundation, developing a suite of control systems and simulation environments that individual startups can then fine-tune to match their own specific reactor designs.
How the Founders Met
Felici and Buchli originally met while teaching AI systems to control an experimental tokamak, a donut-shaped device researchers use to study fusion power. At the time, Felici was working at EPFL in Switzerland, home to one such tokamak, while Buchli worked at Google DeepMind. Felici later joined Google DeepMind himself, where he developed simulations and machine learning interfaces specifically designed for fusion devices.
Felici believes AI will eventually “play an important role in future control systems,” though he’s careful to note it isn’t quite ready to handle the entire challenge independently. “I wouldn’t be somebody who advocates for AI to take the role of controlling the entire fusion reactor,” he said. Instead, he sees AI’s current role as more likely to “complement or enhance or optimize” specific parts of a broader control system, rather than replacing human-designed systems entirely.
Starting With Magnetic Confinement
For now, Fusionality is focusing specifically on magnetic confinement, an approach to fusion power that uses powerful electromagnets to keep fusion fuel sufficiently dense and hot enough to eventually power an electrical grid. Notable startups working on magnetic confinement devices include Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Realta Fusion, Proxima Fusion, and Type One Energy, all representing potential future customers for Fusionality’s technology.
Felici indicated the company eventually plans to expand its Fusionality fusion power control systems to support other fusion approaches beyond magnetic confinement as well, broadening its potential customer base across the wider fusion industry over time.
What Comes Next for Fusionality
The company’s recent pre-seed funding will help its current seven-person team develop the next phase of Fusionality fusion power control technology, focusing on what Felici described as a “tightly selected number of technologies.”
Felici compared the company’s approach to building with Lego blocks. “We start with a few of these blocks and then we build out more,” he said. “We have the ambition to serve the really wide range of technology that you need to operate a fusion reactor,” signaling a long-term vision for Fusionality to become a foundational supplier across the broader fusion power industry as it continues maturing.