Nuclear fusion still faces a thorny path, but it has already created a new sector of the economy

A VOICE FOR FUSION FROM “DR. DOOM”

Nearly two decades ago, US economist Nouriel Roubini earned the nickname “Dr. Doom” after predicting the last major financial crisis. Last year, a different moniker emerged – “Dr. Boom” – as his warnings of recession gave way to expectations of an investment boom in the United States. Despite Donald Trump's policies, which are instead weakening the prospects of such a boom.

Alongside artificial intelligence, Roubini believes an energy revolution is set to drive investment. The economist considers a technological breakthrough in nuclear fusion to be crucial. And it must be said that virtually every word Roubini utters is followed not only by all of Wall Street, but also by financiers in other parts of the world. US Big Tech, often in partnership with major energy companies, plays a key role in supporting fusion. It anticipates rising electricity demand from artificial intelligence and data centres. The aforementioned TAE Technologies has been backed by Google alongside oil giant Chevron and financiers from Goldman Sachs.

This is not only about economic ambitions. In the United States, there is also thinking about the global technological contest and geopolitics. Whoever is first to generate energy from fusion will gain an enormous advantage. The ambitions of global powers are also illustrated by the list of ITER project partners: in addition to the European Union, the US, Japan, South Korea and India, they include China and Russia, which was not excluded even by international sanctions imposed during its aggression against Ukraine. All these countries have their own projects as well, and China in particular raises concerns, having already pulled ahead of its competitors in various technologies. China's EAST tokamak can boast a number of successes, while Beijing also has high hopes for the further fusion reactor under construction, BEST.

THE GREATEST PROMISE THE WORLD HAS EVER SEEN?

Major US technology companies have decided to support fusion power development in a highly innovative way that has left many observers shaking their heads in bewilderment. At a time when it remains unclear how long it will take before the new technology can generate electricity on a large scale, and which reactor concept will ultimately prevail among competing designs, companies such as Microsoft and Google have begun signing agreements to purchase future fusion energy. US Big Tech has also entered into similar contracts in conventional nuclear power – with developers of small modular reactors, which visionaries regard as another promising technology.

Microsoft signed the first agreement to purchase nuclear fusion power in 2023 with Helion Energy, which has already begun construction of the first fusion power plant, Orion, in Washington state. It intends to move from experimental reactors to a facility that will actually generate energy. Helion currently plans to supply electricity to the grid as early as 2028. Google, meanwhile, has signed an agreement with another US company, Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), whose power plant is expected to come online in the early 2030s.

According to Slavomír Entler of Prague's Institute of Plasma Physics, CFS and Germany's Proxima Fusion are among the most outstanding companies in the field. As Entler noted in an article for the Vedavyzkum.cz website, US-based CFS was established as a spin-off from the renowned Massachusetts Institute of Technology, while Proxima emerged as a spin-off from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics.

Slavomír Entler also warns against physically unfeasible visions in which the authors' persuasiveness plays the leading role. In his view, an extreme example is precisely the contracts for the sale of future electricity generated by nuclear fusion, and in this context he specifically mentions the Microsoft-Helion agreement. Big Tech therefore appears to be creating excessive expectations, although on the other hand it probably does not place too much reliance on its partners actually meeting their timelines.

A SLOW EUROPE?

A different perspective on “American methods” was offered by researcher Anda Bologa of the Centre for European Policy Analysis (CEPA), who contributes to its Tech Policy Program. She describes the European approach as overly cautious – if the EU does not launch its first demonstration power plant until sometime in the 2040s, as had appeared likely so far, electricity from fusion sources will reach the grid much later still. According to the researcher, this timetable made sense when fusion was regarded as a long-term research project. But it makes little sense at a time when industry is pressing ahead and targeting major projects in the next decade.

According to optimists, the involvement of private companies could help expand applied research and development, speeding up power plant construction. Yet whether the rapid path to fusion electricity is based on realistic scenarios or merely dreams, it is certain that Europe faces a substantial handicap compared with the United States. US investors, including entrepreneurs such as Bill Gates, Big Tech and various venture capitalists, have long been willing to invest in projects that are a long-term endeavour. This is why America leads in artificial intelligence, the semiconductor industry and biotechnology. Europe struggles with an underdeveloped capital market and a strong aversion to risk. Brussels is trying to address this by creating various funds, but these are often either insufficient or do not do enough to encourage the commercialisation of research results.

According to a report by the F4E Fusion Observatory, private investors had put around $15 billion into fusion development itself by last September, with more than half of that in the US, and spending is expected to continue growing. China has accounted for roughly a third so far, while the European Union accounts for only single-digit percentages, predominantly German money. This is also one reason why Europe is increasingly expected to see the first fusion power plants built outside the continent.

The question is whether the new policy of Friedrich Merz's government in Germany, which intends to invest $2 billion in the sector and has set the goal of a first fusion power plant in the Federal Republic, will alter that expectation. There is even talk in this context of a possible “world first”, which may have more to do with efforts to motivate than with reality.

EUROPE ALSO HAS ITS TRUMP CARDS

Even if Europe is not the fastest at bringing the first new power plants online, its role in the fusion economy will be significant in any case. Many European companies are already involved in the fusion reactor supply chain, particularly thanks to the ITER project. The European part of this international project is managed by Fusion for Energy (F4E), which has involved more than 2,700 companies and 75 research organisations through various contracts. This has brought investments amounting to €6.8 billion between 2007 and 2024.

To achieve a leading technological level, individual countries or companies do not always need to be the final supplier. Consider the example of the semiconductor industry – the world's largest manufacturer, renowned Taiwanese company TSMC, does not sell chips under its own brand but supplies them to well-known US companies such as Nvidia and Apple. Yet no one doubts TSMC's exceptional capabilities. Europe has at least a chance to play a similar role in nuclear fusion.

Moreover, fusion projects can give Europeans know-how that they can use in other sectors. Examples include companies such as Germany's Rolf Kind, which is strong in corrosion-resistant materials; Spain's Gutmar, successful in precision engineering; and Belgian microchip manufacturer Magics Technologies, which supplies microchips for the nuclear energy and space industries. The space sector, which also makes a significant contribution to terrestrial innovation, can be an inspiration for the entire European fusion sector.

CZECHS WERE DRAWN TO SPACE, SO WHY NOT FUSION?

Petr Kapoun, founder of Brno-based company TRL Space, described the development of the Czech space industry in an interview with Export.cz: “When Czechia joined the European Space Agency in 2008, it was a key turning point because it opened up opportunities for various tenders and involvement in supply chains. At TRL Space, we progressed to entire satellites and space missions, but we could not have done it without our previous involvement in ESA programmes.”

Compared with the space sector, fusion – with a few exceptions – remains largely outside the attention of Czech companies. That is not the case for Czech scientists, who could help align industry with research. Entrepreneurs may need an impulse similar to Czechia's accession to ESA in the case of the space industry. Greater awareness that supply chains for fusion reactors are already taking shape today could provide it: companies with a wide variety of specialisations can find a place in them – not only those with a perfect understanding of atomic nuclei fusing together.