China and the US are taking part in the race to create the first grid-scale fusion energy. After decades of US leadership, China is catching up by spending twice as much money and building projects at record speeds.
Nuclear fusion, often called the Holy Grail of Clean Energy, produces four times more energy per kilogram of fuel than fuel burning, four million times more than coal burning, and no greenhouse house gas or long-term radioactive waste. Once everything goes into planning, it will be at least $1 trillion by 2050, according to Ignition’s research.
There’s only one major problem.
“The only fusion power plant in space right now is the stars,” says Dennis White, professor of nuclear science and engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
The US first used fusion on a large scale in 1952 in hydrogen bomb testing. For the next 70 years, scientists around the world have struggled to utilize the fusion reaction for power generation.
Fusion reactions occur when hydrogen atoms fuse and fuse to a temperature that is so extreme that they form a superheated gas called plasma. The mass during the process can theoretically be converted to a huge amount of energy, but the plasma is difficult to control. One common method uses a powerful magnet to hang and control the plasma within Tokamak, a metal donut-shaped device. Another refers to peppercorn-sized fuel pellets and uses a high-energy laser that rapidly compresses and disintegrates the fuel.
That’s why, in 2022, he generated purely positive energy at the Lawrence Livermore National Ignition Facility (NIF), separating the historic First Fusion Ignition.
Here, the preamp module increases laser energy as it heads towards the facility-like target chambers of ignitions nationwide.
Photo courtesy of Damien Jemison of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory
Since then, private investment in U.S. in Fusion Startups has skyrocketed from $1.2 billion in 2021 to more than $8 billion, according to the Fusion Industry Association. Of the 40 FIA member companies, 25 are based in the US
Traditional nuclear power, created from nuclear fission instead of fusion, has seen a huge increase in investment as it seeks ways to meet the ever-growing needs of AI data centers. Amazon, Google and Meta have signed a pledge to support triple nuclear energy around the world by 2050.
“If you care about AI, if you care about energy leadership, you need to invest in fusion,” said Andrew Holland, FIA CEO. “This is something that China would do if the US didn’t lead.”
Money, size, speed
The United States has the most active nuclear power plants, but China is the king of new projects.
Despite being destroyed by its first reactor nearly 40 years after the US developed technology, China is now building far more fissional power plants than any other country.
China took part in the fusion race in the early 2000s, about 50 years after the US, joining more than 30 countries to collaborate with France’s International Thermonuclear Test Reactor Fusion Megaproject. However, Iter has been a big hit with delays ever since.
The race lies between individual countries, but the private sector in the US takes the lead. According to the FIA, of $8 billion in global private fusion investment, there is $6 billion in the US.
Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a startup born from MIT, has raised nearly $2 billion in money from Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Google and more.
Washington-based Hellion has raised $1 billion from investors such as Open Ai’s Sam Altman and is a highly ambitious deal Microsoft We will provide fusion power to the grid by 2028. Google-backed TAE Technologies has raised $1.2 billion.
“People with intrinsically rich, infinite energy can affect everything you think,” says Michl Binderbauer, CEO of Tae Technologies. “If it’s in the wrong hands, that’s a scary thought.”
China is far ahead when it comes to public funding.
Beijing reports $1.5 billion per year to its efforts, while the US federal dollar has averaged around $800 million a year in the past few years, according to the Department of Energy’s Fusion Energy Science Bureau.
President Donald Trump strengthened support for the nuclear nucleus, including fusion, during his first term, which continued under former President Joe Biden. It is unclear what Fusion funding will look like in Trump’s second term amid a massive federal downsizing.
US senators and fusion experts released a report in February seeking $10 billion in federal funds to prevent the US from losing its lead.
However, the US may already have lost its lead when it comes to reactor sizes. In general, a larger footprint allows the reactor to heat and trap plasma more efficiently, increasing the likelihood of net positive energy.
The satellite image for January 11, 2025 shows a large-scale nuclear project in Mianan, China. This appears to include four laser bays, referring to a containment dome about the size of a soccer field, about twice the size of the US National Ignition Fusion facility.
Planet Labs PBC
A series of satellite images provided by Planet Labs to CNBC show the rapid building of China’s huge new laser fusion site in 2024. According to Decker Eveleth of CNA Corporation, the containment dome where the fusion reaction occurs is about twice the size of a NIF, which is about twice the size of a NIF. The Chinese site is probably a fusion-melting hybrid, Fear’s Netherlands said.
“A fusion fusion hybrid is essentially a replica of a bomb, but as a power plant. It doesn’t work and you don’t fly to places like the US where there’s a regulatory system that determines safety,” Holland said. “But in a government like China, it doesn’t matter what people who live next door say. If the government says we want to do it, we’re trying to do it.”
China’s existing national tokamac project, Eastern, has set records, volleying French projects west in recent months, heading west west to the west for the longest containment of plasma in nuclear reactors.
Craft, a Chinese project funded by another giant state, is expected to be completed this year. The $700 million 100-acre fusion campus in eastern China also features a new Tokamak called Best, which is scheduled to close in 2027.
China’s crafts appear to follow the US plan announced by hundreds of scientists in 2020, Holland said.
“The council has done nothing to spend money to lead this into action,” he said. “We’ve made this public, and then the Chinese people went and made it.”
US Fusion Startup Helion told CNBC that some Chinese projects are also copying patented designs.
“Specifically, investments from state agencies are investing in companies and replicating the designs of US companies,” said David Kirtley, founder and CEO of Helion.
Human resources and materials
The rapid deployment of China’s new fusion projects comes when American efforts have focused primarily on upgrading existing machines. Some of these are from over 30 years old.
“No one wants to tackle old dinosaurs,” Te’s Binderbauer said, adding that the new project will attract more talent. “There’s a bit of brain drainage.”
In the early 2000s, budget cuts to domestic fusion research forced US universities to stop working with new machines and to learn machines from other countries, including China.
“Instead of building something new, we went to China and helped them build theirs, thinking, ‘Oh, that’s great. They’ll have facilities. We’ll be really smart,'” said Bob Mumgaard, co-founder and CEO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems. “Well, that was a big mistake.”
According to a report by Nikkei Asia, China has more fusion patents than any other country, with 10 times the doctorate in fusion science and engineering as a US.
“In the west, there is a finite labor pool where all businesses compete,” Binderbauer said. “That’s a basic constraint.”
The SPARC Tokamak was assembled in Debens, Massachusetts in December 2024, and superconducting magnets will be used to reach fusion ignition in 2027.
Federal Fusion System
In addition to human resources, fusion projects require a huge amount of materials, including high-power magnets, specific metals, capacitors, and power semiconductors. Helion’s Kirtley said the timeline for the company’s latest prototype, the Polaris, was set entirely by the availability of semiconductors.
With similar play as how China has moved to corner many of these materials and has come to dominate solar and EV batteries.
“China is investing ten times the rates the US has in developing advanced materials,” Kirtley said. “That’s something we have to change.”
Shanghai-based fusion company Energy Singularity told CNBC that it would definitely benefit from an “efficient supply chain.” In June, Energy Singularity said it had successfully created plasma at a record time, just two years after it began designing Tokamak.
This is a far cry from reaching the commercial fusion capabilities of grid scales. Hellion aims to achieve its 2028 goals. The Commonwealth announced a Virginia site that plans to bring in its first fusion power plant, ARC, online in the early 2030s.
“The first one may be in the US, but I don’t think we should be comforted in it,” Mitt’s White said. “The finish line is actually a mature fusion industry that produces products for use around the world, including AI centers.”
Watch: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2025/03/14/china-is-catching-the-us-in-fusion-amid-ai-power-demand.html
