{"schema":"postcutoff/event@1","as_of":"2026-11-13T13:49:00+01:00","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2024-02-21-ai-avoids-tokamak-tearing-instabilities/","md":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2024-02-21-ai-avoids-tokamak-tearing-instabilities/index.md","disclosure":{"written_by":"AI agents (Claude Opus 5.5 in Claude Code)","editor":"human editor","policy":"https://postcutoff.com/about/"},"license":null,"id":"2024-02-21-ai-avoids-tokamak-tearing-instabilities","date":"2024-02-21","date_precision":"day","short_title":"AI controller predicts and avoids tearing instabilities in the DIII-D fusion reactor","deck":null,"takeaway":"Princeton and PPPL researchers (Nature, Feb 2024) trained an RL controller on past DIII-D data.","category":"science","category_label":"Science & math","importance":3,"confidence":"high","status":{"key":"confirmed","labels":["Result confirmed"]},"sources":[{"n":1,"title":"Avoiding fusion plasma tearing instability with deep reinforcement learning (Nature)","url":"https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-07024-9","type":"paper","group":"primary","domain":"nature.com"},{"n":2,"title":"Princeton Engineering: Engineers use AI to wrangle fusion power","url":"https://engineering.princeton.edu/news/2024/02/21/engineers-use-ai-wrangle-fusion-power-grid","type":"press","group":"press","domain":"engineering.princeton.edu"}],"official":1,"filed":"2026-09-29","updated":"2026-09-29","orgs":["Princeton University","Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory","General Atomics"],"title":"AI controller predicts and avoids tearing instabilities in the DIII-D fusion reactor","summary":"Princeton and PPPL researchers (Nature, Feb 2024) trained an RL controller on past DIII-D data. It forecast tearing-mode instabilities up to 300 ms ahead and adjusted operating parameters in real time to avoid them during experiments while keeping high performance.","key_facts":["Nature 626 (22 Feb 2024)","Forecasts tearing instabilities up to 300 ms in advance","Demonstrated in live DIII-D shots"],"key_numbers":[],"tags":["physics","fusion","reinforcement-learning","control"],"science":{"field":"physics","subfield":"nuclear fusion / plasma stability","problem":"Avoiding disruptive tearing-mode instabilities in high-performance tokamak plasmas","result":"Real-time AI avoidance of tearing instabilities on a working tokamak.","open_since":"","ai_system":["deep RL controller with learned dynamics model"],"human_role":"Human-designed; operated under human supervision","verification":{"key":"peer-review","label":"Peer-reviewed","text":"Peer-reviewed in Nature; demonstrated on hardware"},"status":"confirmed","shock":""},"body_md":"## What happened\n\nThe controller learned the precursors of tearing modes from archived experiments and steered the plasma away from them.\n\n## Why it matters\n\nInstabilities that can damage reactors are a key obstacle to fusion power. Predictive AI control is a candidate solution for ITER-class devices.","disputed":[],"related":[{"id":"2022-02-16-deepmind-tokamak-plasma-control","url":"https://postcutoff.com/e/2022-02-16-deepmind-tokamak-plasma-control/","date":"2022-02-16","date_precision":"day","short_title":"Deep reinforcement learning controls fusion plasma in the TCV tokamak","deck":null,"takeaway":"It showed that RL could replace complex hand-engineered control in fusion devices and opened the way to AI-designed plasma scenarios.","category":"science","category_label":"Science & math","importance":4,"confidence":"high","status":{"key":"confirmed","labels":["Result confirmed"]},"sources":2,"official":2,"filed":"2026-09-29","updated":"2026-09-29","orgs":["DeepMind","EPFL Swiss Plasma Center"]}],"people":[],"posts":[],"videos":[],"models":[],"changes":[{"date":"2026-09-29","type":"filed","text":"Created"}],"provenance":{"agents":[{"model":"Claude Opus 5.5","maker":"Anthropic","tool":"Claude Code"}],"filed":"2026-09-29","run":null,"sources_read":null,"updated":"2026-09-29","human_review":null,"version":{"date":"2026-10-04"}},"gaps":[{"model_id":"gpt-6-astra","name":"GPT-6 Astra","cutoff":"2026-04","days_after":null,"in_training_data":true},{"model_id":"claude-opus-5-5","name":"Claude Opus 5.5","cutoff":"2026-06","days_after":null,"in_training_data":true},{"model_id":"gemini-4-hydrogen","name":"Gemini 4 Hydrogen","cutoff":"2026-03","days_after":null,"in_training_data":true},{"model_id":"grok-4-7","name":"Grok 4.7","cutoff":"2026-05","days_after":null,"in_training_data":true}],"short_url":null}