DECEMBERASIA BUSINESS OUTLOOK8On December 1, the largest nuclear fusion reactor in the world opened in Japan. Although this reactor is a new technology, some say it is the answer to humanity and its future energy needs. Nuclear fusion, unlike nuclear fission, the technology currently used in nuclear power plants, fuses two atomic nuclei together rather than splitting a nucleus.The goal of the JT-60SA reactor is to explore the feasibility of nuclear fusion as a safe, large-scale, carbon-free energy source while producing more energy than it puts out. The six-story-tall machine, located in a hangar in Naka, north of Tokyo, is shaped like a rock and resembles a "tokamakand." A vessel is kept in a rotating plasma heated to 200 million degrees Celsius.It is a joint project between the European Union and Japan and is the predecessor of the International Fusion Experimental Reactor (ITER) that is being built in France. The ultimate goal of both projects is to fuse hydrogen nuclei into a single heavier element, helium, releasing energy in the form of light and heat and modeling the activities that occur on the Sun.Faced with high costs, delayed schedules and major technical challenges, ITER researchers hope to achieve the holy grail of fusion technology: clean energy. Sam Davis, deputy project leader for the JT-60SA, said the device will "bring us closer to fusion energy.""It's the result of a collaboration between more than 500 scientists and engineers and more than 70 companies throughout Europe and Japan," Davis said at Friday's inauguration. Daikin Industries, a Japanese air conditioner manufacturer, is turning to bespoke semiconductors to save energy, as companies increasingly look to bespoke chip designs to improve performance. Companies using legacy chips are also looking to introduce custom silicon as tech heavyweights such as Apple and Amazon invest heavily in custom cutting-edge chips.Daikin, based in Osaka, expects to produce 10 million home air conditioners this fiscal year and has announced a collaboration with a Japanese design firm to customise logic chips for inverters used in its air conditioners. To save energy, inverters change the speed of an air conditioner's motor. They are common in Japan and the European Union, but not so much in the United States.The custom chips, to be made by Taiwan's TSMC, cost more than off-the-shelf alternatives but offer better energy efficiency and allow a reduction in the use of other components, according to a Daikin executive."To bring out the full performance of an air conditioner's compressor and motor, we need to improve chip performance or we will hit a limit," Yuji Yoneda, general manger of Daikin's technology and innovation centre, said in an interview.Daikin intends to use the chips in high-end air conditioners beginning in 2025, with a fifth of units using them by the end of the decade. The company, which created Japan's first packaged air conditioner in 1951, is also developing customised power modules to help manage the air conditioner's electricity supply.Daikin has been hiring engineers from the chip industry to work on customisation while contending with competition from domestic semiconductor investment.Daikin anticipates that a greater emphasis on energy efficiency will benefit the company. According to the International Energy Agency, the global number of air conditioners is expected to more than triple to 5.6 billion units by 2050. NEWSROOMWORLD'S FIRST EXPERIMENTAL FUSION REACTOR NOW OPERATIONALDAIKIN LOOKING TO IMPLEMENT CUSTOM CHIPS FOR IMPROVED PERFORMANCE
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