Fusion energy industry leaders met with U.S. Department of Energy officials on Monday to urge them to facilitate billions of dollars for
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced $134 million in funding for two programs designed to secure U.S. leadership in emerging fusion technologies and innovation. *Funding for the next round of Fusion Innovation Research Engine (FIRE) Collaboratives and the Innovation Network for Fusion Energy (INFUSE) awards will enhance connections between private fusion industry, DOE national labs, and universities*. **WASHINGTON—**The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today announced $134 million in funding for two programs designed to secure U.S. leadership in emerging fusion technologies and innovation. These investments are part of DOE’s broader mission to unleash American energy, science, and innovation, ensuring the technologies that define the future of fusion power are developed here in the United States. DOE is also announcing $6.1 million in funding for the Innovation Network for Fusion Energy (INFUSE) program. With this funding, DOE has selected 20 projects that accelerate private-sector fusion energy development by reducing barriers to collaboration between businesses and national laboratories or universities.
# Fusion in the United States. Illustration: Fusion in the United States. The United States fusion energy community of scientists, researchers, engineers, and industry leaders jointly advocate for adding a demonstration fusion facility to the electric grid as soon as possible. ITER is not the only international fusion collaboration, though. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) oversees worldwide fusion partnerships and research as part of The United Nations. The Department of Energy is the most prominent supporter of fusion energy research in the United States. Public support also bolsters the efforts of private industry, with far-reaching effects on fusion research. The United States is home to the most robust suite of fusion energy companies in the world. The private sector is helping to attract new public attention by working in close collaboration with partners in government and academia, generating renewed excitement about the promise of fusion energy. ## U.S. Fusion Energy Facilities. ### Approaches to Fusion. ### The Science of Fusion. ### A History of Fusion. ### Why Fusion?
[Menu](https://energy.mit.edu/news/funding-the-fusion-revolution/#). * [Research](https://energy.mit.edu/research/). * [Seed fund program](https://energy.mit.edu/seed-fund/). * [Buildings](https://energy.mit.edu/area/buildings/). * [Electric power](https://energy.mit.edu/area/electric-power/). * [Industry](https://energy.mit.edu/area/industry/). * [Policy](https://energy.mit.edu/area/policy/). * [Transportation](https://energy.mit.edu/area/transportation/). * [Education](https://energy.mit.edu/education/). * [Membership](https://energy.mit.edu/membership/). * [About](https://energy.mit.edu/membership/#about). * [Events](https://energy.mit.edu/events). * [About](https://energy.mit.edu/about/). . “If you walked into a room of fusion scientists in 2018 or 2019 and said there were going to be fusion startups, and venture capital funding to the tune of $9 billion, you would have been laughed out of the room,” says [Nuno Loureiro](https://energy.mit.edu/profile/nuno-loureiro/), the director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC). In 2021, CFS and MIT’s PSFC made a major breakthrough when they demonstrated that their [high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnet technology](https://news.mit.edu/2021/MIT-CFS-major-advance-toward-fusion-energy-0908) could produce a magnetic field strong enough for the design of compact fusion devices. “The way I look at it, fusion is not a science problem,” says [Randall Field](https://energy.mit.edu/profile/randall-field/), the director of research at the MIT Energy Initiative. [Electric power](https://energy.mit.edu/area/electric-power/). * [Research](https://energy.mit.edu/research/). * [Education](https://energy.mit.edu/education/). * [Membership](https://energy.mit.edu/membership/). * [About](https://energy.mit.edu/about/).
If sufficiently resourced and authorized by Congress, this new Office of Fusion will represent a critical step toward a public fusion program that matches the needs of today’s fusion industry, is able to bridge remaining gaps to commercialization, and ensures the U.S. fusion energy sector remains competitive on a global stage. In this blog, we examine how the Office of Fusion can accelerate putting commercial fusion power on the grid by building the infrastructure to overcome critical remaining science and technology gaps, as well as funding public-private partnerships needed to enable U.S. fusion companies to compete on a level playing field with international competitors. By focusing on closing shared science and technology gaps, expanding public-private partnerships to attract private capital, and allowing U.S. fusion companies to compete on a level playing field with international competitors, the Office of Fusion can position the United States to be the first nation to put fusion power plants on the grid.
In 2022, scientists at the National Ignition Facility at UC-managed Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory achieved fusion ignition in a lab for the first time, sparking a nuclear reaction that emitted more energy than it consumed. “The UC Fusion Energy Initiative sponsors innovative research, fosters new collaborations between UC faculty and national laboratory scientists, and provides unique training opportunities for UC graduate students and postdoctoral fellows,” says **UC National Laboratories Vice President June Yu.** “The funded projects exemplify cross-disciplinary collaboration that will generate new knowledge and leverage the unique capacities and facilities at UC campuses and national labs. “As an industry leader in fusion energy development with a history of productive collaboration with UC and as the organization that operates DIII-D, a DOE fusion facility in San Diego, General Atomics is excited to see the university make these meaningful, strategic investments toward solving the field’s most pressing scientific and engineering challenges,” says **Anantha Krishnan, senior vice president of the Energy Group at General Atomics,**a San Diego–based energy and technology corporation that is partnering with the University of California to advance the technology.
A Chinese lead in fusion would also give Beijing the capacity to power AI infrastructure at costs and scales the United States cannot match, compounding an advantage that already spans manufacturing, critical minerals, and clean energy. If China commercializes fusion energy before the United States, it will be positioned to power AI data centers at a scale that American infrastructure cannot match. **CPA additionally recommends** that Congress direct the U.S. International Trade Commission to investigate China’s fusion supply-chain subsidies under Section 301 authority, and that the administration apply Buy American provisions to any federally funded fusion facility construction. As the Commission on Scaling of Fusion Energy warned: “The U.S. has less than a decade to achieve leadership in fusion or be left behind by China with stark and perhaps unrecoverable consequences.” The $10 billion investment is both sound industrial policy and a national security imperative.
Learn more about the Fusion Energy Sciences Program. Learn More about Building Bridges: A Vision for the Office of Fusion Energy Sciences. Learn More about Inverted Plasma Shape Shows Promise for Future Fusion Power Plant Design. Public researchers partner with a private company to improve simulations key to controlling plasma heat in a fusion energy power plant. (b) This real-time 3D control drives plasma to the highest performance state for normalized fusion gain (energy out vs energy in, G) and confinement quality (H89) without edge bursts. Controller with Integrated Machine Learning Tweaks Fusion Plasmas in Real Time. Integrating machine learning with real-time adaptive control produces high-performance plasmas without edge instabilities, a key for future fusion reactors. Learn More about Controller with Integrated Machine Learning Tweaks Fusion Plasmas in Real Time. Learn More about For Heating Plasma in Fusion Devices, Researchers Unravel How Electrons Respond to Neutral Beam Injection. Learn More about In a Fusion Device Plasma, a Steep Ion Temperature Gradient Slows the Growth of Magnetic Islands.