Things You Gotta Know
ARPA-E Announces $135 Million Commitment to Fusion Technology
ARPA-E Director Conner Prochaska announced a $135 million commitment to fusion technology at the 2026 Energy Innovation Summit in San Diego, the largest concentrated fusion investment in the agency’s history. The funding will be deployed over 18 months across multiple programs targeting technical barriers to commercial fusion power, including advanced plasma heating, next-generation fuel cycles, and novel power plant architectures. ARPA-E’s prior $134 million in fusion investment since 2014 has catalyzed more than $1.5 billion in private follow-on funding, during which time the number of U.S. fusion companies grew from 12 to more than 50.
SHINE Receives Conditional Commitment for $263 Million DOE Loan
SHINE announced a conditional commitment for a $263 million loan from the DOE’s Office of Energy Dominance Financing to support completion of its Chrysalis facility in Janesville, Wisconsin. The facility uses fusion technology to produce molybdenum-99, a medical isotope used in over 40,000 diagnostic procedures daily in the United States that currently relies entirely on imports from Europe, South Africa, and Australia. Once fully operational, Chrysalis will be the largest medical isotope production facility in the world, supporting approximately 200 construction jobs and 150 permanent positions.
TAE Technologies Completes Multi-State Site Evaluation Tour for First Fusion Power Plant
TAE Technologies completed a multi-state site evaluation tour across Alabama, Ohio, and Texas as part of siting its first fusion power plant. The company’s executive leadership assessed infrastructure readiness, grid connectivity, workforce availability, and development incentives at each location. TAE is targeting approximately 50 MWe of electricity generation from its initial hydrogen-boron fusion facility in the early 2030s, with future plants expected to range from 350 to 500 MWe.
Pulsar Fusion Achieves First Plasma in Sunbird Fusion Exhaust Test System
UK-based Pulsar Fusion achieved first plasma in its Sunbird exhaust test system, an early-stage demonstration of the physical architecture for a nuclear fusion propulsion system. The test was performed at Pulsar’s facility in Bletchley, UK, and live-streamed to Amazon’s MARS Conference in Ojai, California. The company plans to upgrade to high-temperature superconducting magnets and begin experimental work with aneutronic fusion fuel cycles as it develops the Sunbird for deep-space propulsion applications.
CSIS: Federal Investment Needed to Maintain U.S. Fusion Leadership
A new analysis from the Center for Strategic and International Studies warns that China is positioning itself to overtake the United States in fusion deployment, having committed at least $6.5 billion in public funds between 2023 and 2025 compared to roughly $2.34 billion from DOE’s Fusion Energy Sciences program. The authors argue that private capital alone cannot close fusion’s remaining technology gaps or build the testing facilities, supply chains, and workforce pipeline commercialization requires. CSIS notes that China is constructing its fourth tokamak, holds more fusion energy patents, and produces far more PhD graduates in fusion science than the United States. The report calls for sustained federal investment to match the DOE’s creation of a new Office of Fusion or risk ceding first-mover advantage in a market projected to reach $1 trillion by 2050.
The Fusion Decathlon Part 2: Different Challenges for Different (Potential) Solutions
Part two of The Fusion Decathlon examines why different fusion approaches face different commercial challenges. This installment breaks down the specific engineering hurdles confronting inertial fusion energy: driver efficiency, target manufacturing, repetition rate, and the precision required to make several shots per second work for decades.
US Fusion Legislation: What Is In The Pipeline?
As global governments pour billions into fusion commercialization, US legislation and a new DOE Office of Fusion aim to keep America competitive. We break down what’s in the pipeline.
