The future of nuclear energy, education and artificial intelligence was discussed by experts from CERN and Silicon Valley at a special forum in Sofia (Fusion Future Conference - FFC), BNR reported.
Scientists, business leaders and representatives of institutions discussed the key role of nuclear fusion in the global energy transformation and the development opportunities for Bulgarian students.
The event was held at the GATE Institute – the first center of excellence for big data and artificial intelligence in Eastern Europe.
Alpha-E was presented – a cutting-edge platform for education and research in the field of nuclear energy, based on the fusion of light nuclei and developed in Silicon Valley, jointly with Oxford University and MIT.
For one year, students at the Faculty of Physics of Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski" will have the opportunity to work with the platform, analyzing fusion reactions, developing physical models and applying AI algorithms for optimization and prediction. How the platform works is demonstrated by Iskren Vankov – a student of Teodosii Teodosiev – Teo, part of the senior management of one of the high-tech companies in Silicon Valley.
"It is important to see what we can do together in this area. I mean different research institutes, including Sofia University. Let's reach interesting results together," Iskren Vankov noted to BNR-Radio Sofia. And he explained that the platform that the Bulgarian students will work with is a compact accelerator, a machine that can create different types of thermonuclear fusion for the purpose of research and scientific activity. In addition, scientists expect this machine to be a creator of data for artificial intelligence.
There are two main approaches to obtaining energy from thermonuclear fusion. The world would change, and humanity could gain a lot if scientists reach the desired goal - then the energy would be not only cheap and inexhaustible, but also completely clean, Vankov emphasized.
Most researchers report that the first prototypes for people, not in laboratories, will appear in the decade after 2030.