Engineering fusion’s future: The road to market ignition

The path to commercial fusion energy has never been more collaborative. 

This was evident at the recent Economist Impact Fusion Fest, held in Bishopsgate, London, which saw fusion leaders from around the world stress that the field is not just about solving physics problems, but about integrating into a global energy system. The mission was abundantly clear - turn fusion’s scientific promise into scalable, resilient, and commercially viable power plants.

But how do the world’s fusion players - from research institutions to private companies - actually ‘come together’ to accelerate progress? The answer is as varied as the national strategies behind them. In the United States, for example, government-backed programmes like the Office of Fusion Energy Sciences’ milestone-based public-private partnerships are helping to de-risk key technologies by pairing national labs with startups. In the UK, the Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP) programme offers a complementary vision, while in Europe, institutions like KIT in Germany and the UKAEA at Culham are acting as international magnets for public and private collaboration.

Rather than a single global structure, the fusion sector relies on a mosaic of formal research partnerships, bilateral deals, co-located facilities, and increasingly, open forums for data-sharing and knowledge exchange. Events like Fusion Fest help to frame the technology through an economic lens. Here, fusion leaders pleasantly emphasised not just a culture of innovation, but a culture of openness, sharing data, publishing results, and learning together, across borders and corporate boundaries.

“There’s no one answer to how we collaborate,” said Alexander Valys, co-founder, president and chief technology officer at Xcimer Energy. “But the unifying factor is a shared belief in transparency and urgency. We have to get there fast - planning needs it, the planet needs it - and we’ll only do that by driving learning across the whole supply chain.”

At the heart of that learning agenda are a few universal technical challenges. Radiation-resistant materials, tritium breeding and recycling systems, and long-duration plant operations and maintenance. These are pre-competitive problems. The kinds of engineering challenges that everyone in the field will need to overcome, regardless of whether they favour magnetic confinement, inertial fusion, or hybrid models.

And that’s where fusion’s unlikely advantage lies. “It’s rare,” said Francesco Sciortino, co-founder and chief executive, Proxima Fusion, “for an emerging industry to have such a clear common R&D agenda. If we get that part right, as a community, we can unlock real acceleration.”

One of the most compelling moments came not from a panel debate, but from a small spinning donut of plasma cradled in the palm of the hand of Phillipe Larochelle, Partner, Breakthrough Energy Ventures. “This is a toroidal pinch,” he said. “It’s basically a tokamak in miniature. And it runs on 60 watts.”

The demonstration wasn’t just theatrical, it was emblematic. Fusion, once dismissed as the science fiction cousin of nuclear power, is edging closer to practical reality. “Fusion is not some far-flung fantasy” Phillipe said. “It powers the stars, and it can power Earth too, if we can harness it.”

He argued that fusion’s relevance on Earth lies in two revolutionary promises - energy density and energy abundance. Just as the Industrial Revolution leapt from muscle to coal, fusion offers another 1,000-fold leap in power. And the fuel? Nearly infinite, globally accessible, and astonishingly clean. “A barrel of water and 100 grams of lithium can give you the energy equivalent of 750 barrels of oil,” he explained. “That’s energy alchemy.”

The real frontier, though, is economic. Fusion has to be more than scientifically feasible. It must also be commercially viable. Companies such as Tokamak Energy used Fusion Fest to reaffirm its position at the forefront of the sector, highlighting its strategic initiatives aimed at accelerating the path to commercial fusion power.​ Tokamak’sST40 spherical tokamak, located in Oxfordshire, is set to undergo a significant $52 million upgrade which is part of a collaborative effort with the US Department of Energy (DOE) and the UK's Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ)

Unlike fission, which was once cheap before safety concerns pushed costs sky-high, fusion carries the promise of high-output energy without meltdown risks, long-lived waste, or proliferation threats.

In short, if we want a world that is wealthier, decarbonised, and sustainably electrified, even with the demands of AI and global growth, fusion may not just be desirable. It may be essential.

“We did fusion before we did fission,” Philippe concluded. “The question now isn’t if fusion works. It’s whether we’re ready to make it work for everyone.”