Things You Gotta Know
CSIS: Fusion Lands on China’s 15th Five-Year Plan as a Frontier Priority
China’s 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-2030) names fusion as one of eight “frontier technology” areas singled out for focused development through 2030, alongside AI and quantum. Beijing has poured more than $6.5 billion into fusion since 2023, with the Burning Plasma Experimental Superconducting Tokamak (BEST) and other new facilities under construction. Lunar Helium-3 sits in the longer-term play, tied to China’s deep-space program. CSIS reads the plan as a clear signal that these priorities will shape global nuclear and fusion supply chains and innovation competition for the rest of the decade.
ITER on How Fusion Is Pushing AI to Evolve
ITER is rolling out AI across construction, maintenance, simulation, and future operations on the world’s largest tokamak. The team is doing “data archaeology” on decades of JET records, running an internal AI assistant called Lucy on its engineering documents, and standing up a GPU cluster to train a fusion “world model” that will simulate machine behavior before pulses run. At ITER’s recent Public-Private Fusion Workshop, speakers from ITER, NVIDIA, NTT Data Italy, and Gaia Lab argued the bigger story may run the other direction: fusion’s scarce, expensive, real-time data could end up reshaping AI as much as AI reshapes fusion.
Stellarex Energy and UKAEA Sign Fusion R&D MoU
On May 13, Stellarex Energy and the UK Atomic Energy Authority signed a Memorandum of Understanding for joint scientific research and engineering validation of Stellarex’s simplified stellarator power plant design. With TAE Beam UK announced the next day and the Type One, Tokamak Energy, and AECOM Infinity Fusion Consortium announced the week prior, it is now three private-sector fusion deals in roughly two weeks that center on UKAEA.
Xcimer Energy Builds Out an Industrial-Scale Leadership Bench
Inertial fusion developer Xcimer Energy on May 12 named former Navy commander and aerospace executive Doug Kunzman as Vice President of Defense, the newest addition to a senior bench that now also includes ex-Ursa Major CTO Brad Appel as Chief Engineer for Vulcan, former Blue Origin executive Justin Brynestad as SVP for Vulcan, and Rachel Konrad as SVP of strategic communications. Xcimer plans to roughly double its 200-person team in the next year as it builds toward its Vulcan laser facility.
TAE Technologies and UKAEA Spin Up TAE Beam UK
TAE Technologies and the UK Atomic Energy Authority said on May 14 that their joint venture, TAE Beam UK, is now formally established in the UK and fully funded, moving a 2025 strategic partnership into its commercial phase. The venture will operate from the UKAEA’s Culham Campus, with an initial focus on neutral beams, the particle accelerator technology used to heat and sustain fusion plasmas. TAE brings more than two decades of in-house neutral beam IP, and UKAEA brings 40-plus years of fusion engineering, including its history operating the JET neutral beam system.
[On-Demand Webinar] Fusion 2035: The Shot Clock To Put Electricity on the Grid
The Fusion Report convened a half-day webcast to pressure-test what fusion’s run at the mid-2030s commercial window actually requires. Six companies, one moderator, and a milestone-by-milestone read on the next nine years.
Thea Energy Operates Full-Scale Stellarator Shaping Coil
Thea Energy has successfully operated its first full-size, full-current, full-field stellarator planar shaping coil at over 6 T and 20 K, hitting Eos-spec performance. The milestone validates the company’s software-controlled magnet approach and its in-house build in Kearny, NJ, where a second facility is planned for 2026 to scale shaping coil production.
How Real Is the $50/MWh Bar for Fusion in the US?
Bob Mumgaard, CEO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems, said fusion needs to hit $50/MWh to succeed. But US wholesale prices swing from $24 to $260/MWh by region, Europe and Japan run $95 to $100/MWh. AI data centers paying behind the meter face $150 to $300/MWh. $50/MWh is a goal, not a requirement. The real bar is facility Q>10.
