(This is an article I wrote on my Medium account, I wanted to share it here)

A quiet revolution is underway. It may not be as loud as the Gold Rush or the Dotcoms surge, but it may be just as powerful, possibly even more, as two of the most transformative technologies in the world, fusion energy and artificial intelligence, are converging. And most people have no idea of what’s coming.

Why Fusion is The Only Way?

Fusion energy often called the “Holy Grial of Energy” is the future bet where billionaires, nations, and the largest companies out there are putting unbelievable amounts of money. It is the reaction that powers the Sun and stars of the Universe.

Why? Because it is the cleanest and yet most efficient source of energy out there. Groups like Helion Energy, Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Tokamak Energy or First Light Fusion are the ones working on bringing the world the last source of energy it will need.

Right now, the mission is not making fusion (that’s already been done), it’s figuring out a way to produce more energy with fusion than what it takes to induce the reaction. As a human race, we are the closest we’ve ever been to harnessing the power of the Sun in the palm of our hands.

If we already have tons of energy sources, including green, renewable ones, why focus on one that requires millions of degrees Celsius and the pressure of Earth multiplied by itself billions of times?

Artificial Intelligence, a Black Hole for World’s Energy

It is suspected that a massive blackout will show up in the coming years due to the huge amount of energy AI consumes. What happens is not that the world doesn’t have enough energy to sustain it, but that AI energy demand is growing faster than the energy we produce yearly.

See it as a Formula 1 race. See energy as the first car which is going at 90mph and the second (AI) is going 90mph too, but accelerating every second. Eventually, it will reach the 1st car and then leave it far behind.

Everyday, AI grows bigger, thus, it demands more energy to feed its “insatiable hunger”. One ChatGPT query takes nearly 10x the energy as a typical Google research, and multiply that for the usage of over 300 million weekly users by December 2024.

Lightning Growth from 2022 to 2025

To see how fast technology is going nowadays, just rewind 3 years from today, back to November 2022. In that time, the new OpenAI launched ChatGPT, an AI-powered LLM (Large Language Model), becoming one of the first pioneers in generative AI.

If you heard about and used ChatGPT on that time, you may remember that, next to the latest version of today, it is really outdated, obsolete and unefficient. It goes so far that we see it as “nostalgic” in some way, something that remembers us the good ol’ days of AI. No image generation, really basic coding, short answers, no option to search the web or read files and so goes the list.

This is just one of the many cases where it is proved that XXI century is the era with the fastest technology progression. It may not be like the XIX or XX, where some of the greatest inventions such as the lightbulb, the car or Coca-Cola were created, but it is the period of time where technology evolves faster than ever before.

According to HatchWorks, generative AI usage is doubling year over year. We’re now living in the fastest period of technological growth in human history.

They are not just growing side by side, they are feeding each other. AI simulates fusion reactions, it can optimize the magnet’s design and and train models to evaluate and tweak the reactor’s efficiency. While fusion could become the lifeblood of AI, powering huge data servers and the heavy technology it demands without collapsing the grid.

This is not sci-fi, it’s the reality, and it’s happening now.

The question is… Will you be a bystander or a builder in the era of fusion and AI?