Is nuclear fusion going to arrive way sooner than expected?

The biggest scientific and technological breakthrough of last year, or maybe of recent years, might seem obvious. On December 13, the US Department of Energy officially announced that scientists at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory had for the first time achieved a net energy gain — more power out than in — from a nuclear fusion reaction. The power of a star in a laboratory. “Simply put, this is one of the most impressive scientific feats in the 21st century,” said Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm in a news conference back then. “Today we tell the world that America has achieved a tremendous scientific breakthrough.”

So why hesitate in declaring the fusion breakthrough as the clear winner of last year? Three reasons. First, just two weeks before the fusion announcement was the public release of ChatGPT. Perhaps you’ve heard of it. In fewer than six months, the generative AI application has been compared to other fundamental advances such as fire and the wheel with speculation that the next big iteration could be human-level AI.

 
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