Cambridge Heavy Industries has stepped out of stealth with a $6.2 million seed round to build a benchtop fusion device.
Operating near MIT, the startup uses AI-powered simulations fed by daily laser experiments to optimize reactor design and target tritium production.
The company has until recently operated in secret from a small lab near MIT. Co-founder and CEO Yun Kai explained that building a small system makes testing easier, allowing the team to conduct 50 to 80 experiments a day. The data from these experiments feeds simulations that use artificial intelligence to improve the design.
This approach attracted investor interest, with the company raising $6,2 million in funding. The funding round was led by Azolla Ventures, with participation from Overlay, Neta Foundation, P3A, MassCEC, and the Rothrock family.
The device uses lasers to compress a fuel target, using fewer lasers than traditional methods. The basic idea was born from research in the lab of chemist Keith Nelson at MIT.
The company plans to build a full-scale power plant about the size of two basketball courts in about a decade. Before it gets there, Cambridge Heavy Industries plans to use its smaller devices to produce tritium, a material that currently sells for around $30.000 per gram, to secure revenue as it moves toward final development.
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