Energy Breakthroughs and Milestones

Interactive tracker of 25 nuclear fusion projects worldwide: from ITER to Helion, from NIF to Commonwealth Fusion's SPARC. Explore approaches, funding milestones and the path towards commercialization by 2050.

FreeServerless (with AWS Lambda) and Client-Side using Angular, Spring Boot or Ollama for the backend API. The frontend is built on top of a framework like ReactJS, Vue.js or Angular with TypeScript as programming language.Projects - Snapshot 202625

Static dataset based on official press releases, peer-reviewed papers, FIA 2023 reports and public sources (ITER Organization, DOE, EUROfusion, LLNL). Funding and milestones updated to May 2026. Not intended as energy or financial advice.

25Projects
$61.6BTotal funding
12Personal/Private/VC (Venture Capital) funding
9Publics
1Reached Q > 1

Filters

Physical approach
Financing
Current milestone
Country
Year of foundation
1980 – 2025

Year of founding timeline (1980-2025)

25 projects
Concept
Construction
First Plasma
Q > 1
Q-Target
Commercial Target

All projects

1983
JET — Joint European Torus
EUROfusion / UKAEA Culham
TokamakPublic
$1.8B
UK • Q = 0.7
1997
NIF — National Ignition Facility
Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (DOE)
Inertial LaserPublic
$3.5B
USA • Q = 1.5
1998
TAE Technologies (ex Tri Alpha Energy)
TAE Technologies Inc.
Aneutronic (p-B11)Private / VC
$1.2B
USA
1999
NSTX-U / MAST-U Spherical Tokamak
Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL)
Spherical TokamakPublic
$350M
USA
2002
General Fusion
General Fusion Inc.
Magnetized TargetHybrid
$400M
Canada
2003
LPPFusion (Dense Plasma Focus)
LPPFusion Inc.
Aneutronic (p-B11)Private / VC
$5M
USA
2006
EAST — Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak
Institute of Plasma Physics (ASIPP), Hefei
TokamakPublic
$900M
China
2007
ITER
ITER Organization (35 paesi)
TokamakPublic
$22B
Multinational
2008
KSTAR — Korea Superconducting Tokamak Advanced Research
Korea Institute of Fusion Energy (KFE)
TokamakPublic
$800M
Korea
2009
Tokamak Energy ST40
Tokamak Energy Ltd.
Spherical TokamakHybrid
$250M
UK
2011
First Light Fusion
First Light Fusion Ltd.
Inertial-MagneticPrivate / VC
$70M
UK
2013
Helion Energy
Helion Energy Inc.
Magnetized TargetPrivate / VC
$2.8B
USA
2014
Compact Fusion Reactor (Lockheed Skunk Works)
Lockheed Martin Skunk Works
Magnetized TargetHybrid
$200M
USA
2015
Wendelstein 7-X
Max Planck Institut für Plasmaphysik (IPP)
StellaratorPublic
$1.3B
Germany
2017
HB11 Energy
HB11 Energy Pty Ltd.
Aneutronic (p-B11)Private / VC
$15M
Australia
2017
Zap Energy — Sheared Flow Z-Pinch
Zap Energy Inc.
Inertial-MagneticPrivate / VC
$200M
USA
2018
SPARC (Commonwealth Fusion Systems)
Commonwealth Fusion Systems / MIT PSFC
TokamakPrivate / VC
$2B
USA
2018
ENI-MIT CFS Partnership
ENI S.p.A. + MIT PSFC + Commonwealth Fusion Systems
TokamakHybrid
$500M
Italia
2019
Type One Energy
Type One Energy Group
StellaratorPrivate / VC
$29M
USA
2019
Marvel Fusion
Marvel Fusion GmbH
Inertial LaserPrivate / VC
$60M
Germany
2020
DEMO — DEMOnstration Power Station
EUROfusion Consortium (EU)
TokamakPublic
$15B
EU
2021
TAE Power Systems
TAE Power Systems (spin-off TAE Technologies)
Aneutronic (p-B11)Private / VC
$200M
USA
2021
Realta Fusion (ex Agni Energy)
Realta Fusion Inc.
Magnetized TargetPrivate / VC
$13M
USA
2022
CFETR — China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor
ASIPP / SWIP (Southwestern Institute of Physics)
TokamakPublic
$8B
China
2022
Proxima Fusion
Proxima Fusion GmbH
StellaratorPrivate / VC
$20M
Germany

Plasma Physics: Key Concepts

Lawson Criterion and Q-Factor Criteria

Energy produced / energy inputted. Q=1 breakeven scientific (NIF 2022: Q=1.54). Commercial reactor: Q>10–30. ITER target Q=10. The Lawson criterion requires n·τ > 20 m-3⋅s and T > 100 million K.

Magnetic confinement devices: Tokamaks and stellarators are the most studied, but inertial confinement is also being explored for fusion energy production.

Tokamak (toroidal current, disruptions possible): JET, ITER, SPARC. Stellarator (elliptical geometry, steady-state): Wendelstein 7-X, Type One. Inertial confinement by laser (compressed DT target): NIF. Magnetized target: Helion, General Fusion.

The private race to fusion

From 2021 over $6 billion in private fusion investments (FIA 2023). CFS: $2 billion (Gates, Breakthrough Energy). Helion: $2.8B (Sam Altman/Y Combinator). TAE: $1.2B (Google). Zap Energy: $160M (Chevron). First time VC competes with national decade-long programs.

Lex Fridman Key Episodes

Episodes #83 and #162: Dennis Whyte (MIT PSFC) on SPARC and HTS magnets, Episodes #308: Sam Altman on Helion and Microsoft PPA, Episode #365: Tyler Cowen + energy as the bottleneck of civilization available at lexfridman.com/podcast.