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Hub AI
TAE Technologies AI simulator
(@TAE Technologies_simulator)
Hub AI
TAE Technologies AI simulator
(@TAE Technologies_simulator)
TAE Technologies
TAE Technologies, Inc., formerly Tri Alpha Energy, is an American company based in Foothill Ranch, California developing aneutronic fusion power. The company's design relies on an advanced beam-driven field-reversed configuration (FRC), which combines features from accelerator physics and other fusion concepts in a unique fashion, and is optimized for hydrogen-boron fuel, also known as proton-boron or p-11B. It regularly publishes theoretical and experimental results in academic journals with hundreds of publications and posters at scientific conferences and in a research library hosting these articles on its website. TAE has developed five generations of original fusion platforms with a sixth currently in development. It aims to manufacture a prototype commercial fusion reactor by 2030.
The company was founded in 1998, and is backed by private capital. It operated as a stealth company for many years, refraining from launching its website until 2015. It did not generally discuss progress nor any schedule for commercial production. However, it has registered and renewed various patents.
As of 2021, TAE Technologies had more than 250 employees and had raised over US$880 million.
Main financing has come from Goldman Sachs and venture capitalists such as Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's Vulcan Inc., Rockefeller's Venrock, and Richard Kramlich's New Enterprise Associates. The Government of Russia, through the joint-stock company Rusnano, invested in Tri Alpha Energy in October 2012, and Anatoly Chubais, Rusnano CEO, became a board member. Other investors include the Wellcome Trust and the Kuwait Investment Authority. As of July 2017 the company reported that it had raised more than $500 million in backing. As of 2020, it had raised over $600 million, which rose to around $880 million in 2021 and $1.2 billion as of 2022.
TAE's technology was co-founded by physicist Norman Rostoker, as a spin-out of his work at the University of California, Irvine. Steven Specker, former CEO of the Electrical Power Research Institute (EPRI), was CEO from October 2016 to July 2018. Michl Binderbauer, who earned his PhD. in plasma physics under the guidance of Rostoker at UCI, moved from CTO to CEO following Specker's retirement. Specker remains an advisor. Additional board members include Jeff Immelt, former CEO of General Electric; John J. Mack, former CEO of Morgan Stanley; and Ernest Moniz, former United States Secretary of Energy at the US Department of Energy, who joined the company's board of directors in May 2017.
Since 2014 TAE Technologies has worked with Google to develop a process to analyze the data collected on plasma behavior in fusion reactors. In 2017, using a machine learning tool developed through the partnership and based on the "Optometrist Algorithm", it found significant improvements in plasma containment and stability over the previous C-2U machine. The study's results were published in Scientific Reports.
In November 2017 the company was admitted to a United States Department of Energy program, "Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment", that gave it access to the Cray XC40 supercomputer.
In 2021, TAE Technologies announced a joint research project with Japan’s Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS), a three year-long study on the effects of hydrogen-boron fuel reactions in the NIFS Large Helical Device (LHD).
TAE Technologies
TAE Technologies, Inc., formerly Tri Alpha Energy, is an American company based in Foothill Ranch, California developing aneutronic fusion power. The company's design relies on an advanced beam-driven field-reversed configuration (FRC), which combines features from accelerator physics and other fusion concepts in a unique fashion, and is optimized for hydrogen-boron fuel, also known as proton-boron or p-11B. It regularly publishes theoretical and experimental results in academic journals with hundreds of publications and posters at scientific conferences and in a research library hosting these articles on its website. TAE has developed five generations of original fusion platforms with a sixth currently in development. It aims to manufacture a prototype commercial fusion reactor by 2030.
The company was founded in 1998, and is backed by private capital. It operated as a stealth company for many years, refraining from launching its website until 2015. It did not generally discuss progress nor any schedule for commercial production. However, it has registered and renewed various patents.
As of 2021, TAE Technologies had more than 250 employees and had raised over US$880 million.
Main financing has come from Goldman Sachs and venture capitalists such as Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen's Vulcan Inc., Rockefeller's Venrock, and Richard Kramlich's New Enterprise Associates. The Government of Russia, through the joint-stock company Rusnano, invested in Tri Alpha Energy in October 2012, and Anatoly Chubais, Rusnano CEO, became a board member. Other investors include the Wellcome Trust and the Kuwait Investment Authority. As of July 2017 the company reported that it had raised more than $500 million in backing. As of 2020, it had raised over $600 million, which rose to around $880 million in 2021 and $1.2 billion as of 2022.
TAE's technology was co-founded by physicist Norman Rostoker, as a spin-out of his work at the University of California, Irvine. Steven Specker, former CEO of the Electrical Power Research Institute (EPRI), was CEO from October 2016 to July 2018. Michl Binderbauer, who earned his PhD. in plasma physics under the guidance of Rostoker at UCI, moved from CTO to CEO following Specker's retirement. Specker remains an advisor. Additional board members include Jeff Immelt, former CEO of General Electric; John J. Mack, former CEO of Morgan Stanley; and Ernest Moniz, former United States Secretary of Energy at the US Department of Energy, who joined the company's board of directors in May 2017.
Since 2014 TAE Technologies has worked with Google to develop a process to analyze the data collected on plasma behavior in fusion reactors. In 2017, using a machine learning tool developed through the partnership and based on the "Optometrist Algorithm", it found significant improvements in plasma containment and stability over the previous C-2U machine. The study's results were published in Scientific Reports.
In November 2017 the company was admitted to a United States Department of Energy program, "Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment", that gave it access to the Cray XC40 supercomputer.
In 2021, TAE Technologies announced a joint research project with Japan’s Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS), a three year-long study on the effects of hydrogen-boron fuel reactions in the NIFS Large Helical Device (LHD).