Compact Fusion

“Clean,” “safe,” and “inexhaustible”—nuclear fusion is considered the ultimate solution for human energy needs. Just one gram of fusion fuel can release 90,000 kilowatt-hours of electricity...

As the global demand for clean energy continues to grow, nuclear fusion, as one of the ultimate solutions for future energy, is attracting increasing attention.

According to the Fusion Industry Association (FIA)’s “Global Fusion Industry Report 2024,” the fusion industry has attracted over $7.1 billion in investment from 2021 to 2024. In 2024 alone, $900 million in new investments were added, with government funding increasing by 57% to $426 million. The number of private fusion companies worldwide has also risen to 45, with the United States taking the lead with 25 companies. The United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, and China follow closely behind.

Data released by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) shows that, as of 2024, there are 102 operational nuclear fusion devices globally, with 16 under construction and another 48 planned. In total, utility-owned fusion devices number 115, while privately led fusion devices total 51. Countries such as China, France, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Japan, Russia, South Korea, Canada, the Netherlands, and India all possess experimental fusion devices.

In 2024, both public-public and public-private partnerships saw significant leaps forward. In the realm of public-public cooperation, Japan established the Fusion Industry Council (J-Fusion), and Europe formed the European Fusion Association. Following the establishment of a fusion energy strategic partnership between the UK and the US in 2023, the UK and Canada confirmed a new partnership in fusion energy in February. In April, the US Department of Energy (DOE) and Japan’s Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) forged a strategic partnership. On the public-private cooperation front, notable initiatives include the US Milestone-based Fusion Development Program, Germany’s new “Fusion 2040” plan, Japan’s new “Fusion Moonshot” goal, and the UK’s new “Fusion Futures” program, all of which aim to invest in key technology providers. Based on these plans, public-private partnerships are being progressively established. EURO fusion and Fusion for Energy (F4E) jointly launched the European Fusion Technology Marketplace. The UK’s Tokamak Energy (TE) company is set to collaborate with the UK and US governments on two projects: the ST40 upgrade and the first fusion energy innovation project, LEAPS. The international organization ITER also announced its interest in public-private partnerships and intends to share knowledge directly with private fusion companies.

Significant progress has been made in the field of nuclear fusion research both domestically and internationally, and the commercialization process is also accelerating.

Since 2025, China has made several groundbreaking achievements in the field of nuclear fusion research. China's Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) achieved a new world record by sustaining a plasma temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius for 1,066 seconds, setting a new benchmark for high-confinement mode operation in tokamak devices. The new-generation device, “China’s HL-3” (HL-3), achieved a “double hundred million degree” parameter level for the first time, with ion temperatures reaching 117 million℃ and electron temperatures reaching 160 million℃. This milestone marks a significant step towards the engineering application of controlled nuclear fusion in China. Subsequently, HL-3 set another national record for fusion device operation by achieving a high-confinement mode (H-mode) with a plasma current of 1 million A and an ion temperature of 100 million ℃, resulting in a new high for the fusion triple product at the level of 10 to the power of 20. The large-aperture strong-field magnet, the Jing Tian magnet, independently developed by Energy Singularity, successfully completed its first round of current-carrying experiments, generating a magnetic field as high as 21.7T. This achievement sets a new record for the highest magnetic field in large-aperture high-temperature superconducting D-shaped magnets. The total assembly of the BEST (Break-even and Steady-state Tokamak) project has officially commenced, and upon completion in 2027, it will become the world’s first compact fusion energy experimental facility.

On the international front, France’s WEST device successfully sustained a hydrogen plasma for 1,337 seconds with a heating power as high as 2MW. Helion Energy in the United States plans to build the world’s first 50MW fusion power plant in Washington by 2028. Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) in the U.S. has completed over 50% of the toroidal field magnets for its SPARC device, with the goal of achieving plasma operation by 2026. The company has also finished the site selection for its ARC commercial reactor, which is designed to power 150,000 homes. Germany’s Proxima Fusion has unveiled the world’s first “Stellaris” stellarator fusion power plant concept design. The UK’s STEP project has published a list of construction and engineering partners, marking a new phase for the STEP project.

Every step is reinforcing decades of technological breakthroughs and accumulation, and refining the grand vision of nuclear fusion.

The late Soviet physicist Lev Artsimovich, one of the inventors of the tokamak device, once said: “When society needs nuclear fusion, it will be ready.”