A lengthy article in Le Monde by special correspondent David Larousserie confirms previous reports that research in thermonuclear fusion energy technology is making big strides to reach the point of commercialization.
Here is a summary of Larousserie’s report:
Who will be the first to send a fusion electron into the power grid? From Germany to China, via the United States and France, more than 50 startups are engaged in fierce competition to finally control this energy. … This time, the promise of an abundant, secure, carbon-free, and reasonably priced energy source seems to be getting closer.
The situation is changing with a swarm of companies determined to deliver on expectations. There are now at least 53 of them, compared to 10 of them 15 years ago, according to the latest report from the Fusion Industry Association (FIA), founded in 2018. Around $9.7 billion (€8.2 billion) have been invested in them through July 2025, including $2.64 billion in the previous 12 months, compared to less than $2 billion in total before 2021.
“Fusion is coming sooner than we thought. Ten years ago, it was considered long-term. The physics is now understood and companies are ready,” notes Andrew Holland, FIA president. “If it works, it will change the world.” The majority of the 44 companies that responded to the association’s questionnaire expect the first fusion-generated electron to enter the electricity grid before 2035; 80% believe it will be before 2040….”
The announcements continue coming. On Sept. 22, Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) signed an electricity delivery contract with Italy’s ENI, after doing so in June with Google. By the end of August, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology spin-off and its 1,200 employees had raised more than $860 million. In July, Type One Energy signed a power-delivery commitment with the Tennessee Valley Authority. This year, several public research experiments have broken records. At the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), WEST held a hot soup of fusion-capable particles for 22 minutes, beating by 271 seconds the time set by its Chinese competitor EAST a few weeks earlier.
Larousserie singles out Germany, with four companies in the field: Proxima, Marvel, Gauss, and Focused Energy. Interestingly, in this war-driven, pessimistic world, he notes that the coalition agreement of the ruling parties in Germany specifies that the country must be the first in the world to equip itself with a fusion reactor!
The two major technological paths to reach fusion are still the same: 1) magnetic confinement, which favors long reaction times. The nuclei are trapped in a gaseous soup using intense magnetic fields. The international ITER project is the best-known example; 2) inertial confinement, which works for shorter durations but higher matter densities.
