Nuclear Fusion

16 MW peak fusion power, Q ≈ 0.67 — the benchmark for 25 years.

Peak ion temperature ~10× the sun's core — the heat fusion needs.

3.15 MJ out from 2.05 MJ of laser energy in — the first lab fusion gain.

JET's final deuterium-tritium campaign, from just 0.2 mg of fuel.

Steady-state operation past 1,000 s — the bridge to a power plant.

WEST (CEA, France) held a hydrogen plasma for 1,337 s — about 22 minutes — at 50M°C with a tungsten wall and 2 MW of heating, surpassing EAST's 1,066 s by ~25% for the longest sustained fusion plasma on record.

EAST ran stable plasmas at 1.3–1.65× the Greenwald density limit (vs the usual 0.8–1.0) using ECRH-assisted ohmic start-up — clearing a decades-old barrier in magnetic confinement. Higher density lifts the fusion rate and the triple product toward breakeven. Published in Science Advances (Jan 2026); ASIPP, Huazhong University and Aix-Marseille.

In its 2023–24 campaign, after a tungsten divertor upgrade, KSTAR sustained high-confinement (H-mode) plasma for 102 s and held ion temperatures of 100M°C for 48 s — both device records. The team's next goal is 300 s above 100M°C by the end of 2026.

Eighth ignition shot — more than quadruple the laser energy delivered.

First commercially-relevant machine aiming to pass Q>1, ~75% built.

Full D-T phase under the 2024 baseline; first plasma now 2034.

The 13-tesla, ~1,000-tonne Central Solenoid — the 'beating heart' built by General Atomics to drive ITER's plasma current — is complete and delivered to the site. A key assembly milestone toward first plasma (2034); the full pulsed-magnet system was ~15 years in the making.

Chelan County permits Helion's Orion plant in Malaga, WA — up to 50 MW to Microsoft, targeted by 2028.

Phoenix, a prototype for industrial-scale laser fusion, begins operations — demonstrating end-to-end KrF excimer amplification plus Stimulated Brillouin Scattering (SBS) pulse compression at >1 kJ through a 38 m gas optic (record energy and scale for SBS). First step toward the Vulcan laser and the Athena power plant; the gas-laser path targets lower cost than solid-state drivers.

Germany joins the EU 'Innovative Core Technologies' IPCEI, focused exclusively on fusion (not fission) — roughly €2.4B this legislative period, part of >€2B pledged for fusion R&D and pilots through 2029. National projects start 2027; the government's stated aim is to host the world's first fusion power plant.

Adds near-term ~50 MW modular fission reactors alongside its sheared-flow Z-pinch fusion, betting on shared materials, liquid-metal and power-conversion tech. Century platform hit a record 1.6 GPa plasma pressure and FuZE-A came online. Zabrina Johal (ex-General Atomics, US Navy nuclear) named CEO; cofounder Benj Conway → President.

Polaris reaches 150M°C — first privately built machine to do D-T fusion, beating Helion's own 100M°C (Trenta).

CFS published five peer-reviewed papers (58 authors, a Journal of Plasma Physics special issue) laying the physics basis for ARC — its first commercial plant, designed to deliver 400 MW net to the grid in the early 2030s — building on lessons from SPARC.

Proxima Fusion, RWE, the Free State of Bavaria and Max Planck IPP signed an MOU to build Europe's first commercial stellarator fusion plant. It starts with 'Alpha', a €2B (~$2.3B) demonstration stellarator in Garching aiming to be the first stellarator to reach net energy gain (Q>1) in the 2030s; a commercial 'Stellaris' plant would follow at RWE's decommissioning Gundremmingen nuclear site. IPP leads physics, Proxima engineering, RWE plant construction.

ARPA-E committed $135M to fusion over 18 months — more than its entire prior 12 years of fusion funding combined — launching CHADWICK (first-wall materials for a 40-year plant life) and GAMOW (market-aligned fusion) programs.

Avalanche's compact Orbitron device "Jyn" measured apparent ion temperatures above 1 keV (~11M°C, hotter than the Sun's core) — the community's take-notice threshold, hit in a desktop-sized machine.

Pacific Fusion's pulser-module prototype (9 stages, 90 bricks) delivered 440 GW in an 80 ns burst — the highest-power single-step pulsed-power driver ever demonstrated — validating its trigger sync and unlocking a tranche of its >$1B Series A; demo-facility construction starts this summer.