On August 19, 2023, the first strategic seminar on new fusion technologies, concepts, and models organized by FDS was held in Qingdao. This meeting aimed to promote communication, collaboration and participation in international cooperation among relevant institutions engaged in technological research, industrial development, and financial investment in the field of fusion, and promote the rapid development of China’s fusion industry.
Jiang Xiang, CEO of HHMAX, provided a thorough overview on the current status of both international and domestic fusion enterprises and investment climate in the fusion industry. Commercial fusion enterprises have experienced more than 30 years of development in developed countries in Europe and America. In recent years, private commercial fusion enterprises have rapidly expanded and received a large amount of investment. Since 2017, the number of private startup companies has rapidly increased to nearly 40, with a total financing scale of over 4.8 billion US dollars. Prominent investors such as Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Sam Altman, Soros, etc., as well as famous investment institutions like Google, Temasek, Tiger Global, and Chevron participated. In recent years, what we should pay special attention to is that CFS, a US nuclear fusion company, has already secured $250 million in funding in the early stage and obtained $1.8 billion in investment through Series B funding financing, achieving the largest single financing in nuclear fusion history.
Jiang Xiang pointed out that in light of this background, a diverse trend of achieving fusion power generation is being shown in the technological approaches. With technological progress, linear fusion technology has become increasingly competitive in recent years. Due to advantages of cost, power density, and engineering structure, methods such as magnetic mirrors and field reversal configuration are widely adopted by TAE, Helion Energy and other international enterprises. Moreover, the linear fusion technology has the advantage of achieving neutron sources in the short term, and also great potential for commercialization of small-scale nuclear fusion in the medium-term and long-term.
During the meeting, experts introduced the research progress of various institutions in the field of latest approaches to fusion, and engaged in detailed discussions on developing the fusion industry with new models. Academician Yichan Wu discussed international collaboration and innovative thinking on fusion, emphasizing that fusion energy has emerged as a important area of development direction for energy strategies in various countries. Commercial investment may serve as the primary catalyst for fusion development in the future. Subsequently, experts conducted research and discussions on their respective research fields, creating a vibrant atmosphere at the event.
This seminar, supported by the Department of International Cooperation, the Ministry of Science and Technology of the People´s Republic of China (MOST), was co-chaired by Academician Yichan Wu, Chairman of the Executive Committee of the Fusion Reactor Nuclear Technology Cooperation Program of the International Energy Agency, and Academician Xianjue Peng, a nuclear physicist of the ‘Two Bombs and One Satellite’ program. More than 50 corporate executives, specialists, and academics from scientific research institutions, university, enterprises and investment institutions in the fusion field attended the seminar, such as the Southwestern Institute of Physics (SWIP), Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ASIPP), the Research Institute of Tianfu New Energy , FDS, Huazhong University of Science and Technology (HUST), East China University of Technology (ECUT), Dalian University of Technology (DLUT), Andong Fusion, HHMAX, ORIZA SEED, and CASSTAR.