Things You Gotta Know

Washington Startup Secures DOE Funding for Liquid Metal Wall Research
ExoFusion has received DOE Fusion Innovation Research Engine (FIRE) funding to research liquid metal walls for fusion generators, with Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory leading the project and ExoFusion co-founder Michael Kotschenreuther spearheading key initiatives. The Bellevue and Austin-based company has secured approximately $3 million in grants from DOE programs including INFUSE and ARPA-E, positioning it within the Pacific Northwest fusion hub alongside companies like Avalanche, Zap Energy, and Helion Energy.

Helical Fusion CEO Discusses Japan’s Strategic Push for Commercial Fusion
Takaya Taguchi, CEO of Helical Fusion, outlined the company’s strategy to address surging electricity demand from AI and data centers during a Bloomberg interview. The Tokyo-based stellarator developer raised $15 million in Series A funding and aims to deliver the world’s first steady-state net power fusion plant by 2034, leveraging decades of research from Japan’s National Institute for Fusion Science.

Bipartisan Legislation Targets Fusion Manufacturing Tax Credits
Senators Maria Cantwell and John Curtis introduced the Fusion Advanced Manufacturing Parity Act, which would extend the federal advanced manufacturing production credit to include a 25 percent tax credit for domestically manufactured fusion energy components including superconducting magnets, plasma vacuum vessels, and fusion heating systems. The legislation also updates the critical minerals list to include fusion-relevant materials such as deuterium, tritium, helium-3, and lithium compounds, addressing supply chain development critical to commercial deployment.

Kyoto Fusioneering Expands Global Operations and Partnerships
Kyoto Fusioneering continues scaling its international presence with facilities across Japan, UK, US, and Germany while pursuing fusion component development. The company raised $35.9 million in September 2025 as part of its Series C extension, supporting development of critical technologies including gyrotron systems, tritium fuel cycle solutions, and breeding blankets for commercial fusion power plants.

China’s HL-3 Tokamak Achieves 100 Million Degree Milestone
China’s Huanliu-3 tokamak at the Southwestern Institute of Physics in Chengdu heated plasma ions beyond 100 million degrees Celsius for the first time, with energy retention efficiency approaching levels required for thermonuclear fusion. The device created dual transport barriers using an optimized magnetic field configuration and maintained temperatures above 9.4 keV even in low-confinement mode, marking significant progress in China’s magnetic confinement fusion program toward burning plasma experiments.

Highlights from NVIDIA GTC 2025, Washington D.C

At NVIDIA’s GTC 2025 in Washington, D.C., the intersection of AI and energy became impossible to ignore. While Jensen Huang unveiled the Blackwell NVL72 with 10X performance gains and NVIDIA’s vision of AI “workers” augmenting human productivity, the energy implications loom large: AI data centers are adding billions to electricity costs while displacing white-collar jobs at unprecedented scale. This analysis explores why NVIDIA’s exponential compute growth makes fusion energy not just desirable, but essential and how the company’s philosophy on manufacturing, employment, and innovation offers a model for navigating AI’s macro-economic challenges.

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