Olivia Seidel is tackling a problem that sounds deceptively simple: understanding how transistors behave when they get very cold. The answers she finds could shape everything from quantum computers to satellites in outer space, and she is using artificial intelligence to accelerate that research. A Ph.D. student working within Fermi National Acceleratory Laboratory’s Microelectronics group, Seidel is leveraging AI for cryogenic transistor modeling. Her work draws on Fermilab’s deep expertise in microelectronics and cryogenic devices to support key goals of the Genesis Mission — a sweeping national AI initiative combining the expertise of the Department of Energy’s national laboratories, U.S. research universities and industry to supercharge American innovation. I recently visited Seidel at her office in Fermilab’s iconic Wilson Hall to talk about the exciting work underway. Q: What exactly is a transistor, and why should anyone care about how it behaves in the cold? Transistors are the computational building blocks of every electronic device you use — your phone, your laptop, anything that manipulates bits and bytes. Over decades, industry has become extraordinarily good at making them smaller and more powerful. We’re talking about transistors just a few nanometers across — so small that a single wavelength of visible light is hundreds of times wider. For most of that history, room temperature was the only environment that mattered. But quantum computing and other emerging technologies require electronics that function at cryogenic temperatures — just a few degrees above absolute zero. And at those extremes, transistors behave very differently. Q: How do the transistors behave differently? One of the clearest examples is what it takes to switch a transistor on. At room temperature, you apply a certain voltage, and it turns on. At deep cryogenic temperatures below 4 kelvin [about minus 452 degrees Fahrenheit], like the temperatures of outer space,