TVA and Type One Energy to Build 350 MW Fusion Plant
Proxima Fusion Extends Series A to €200M Total Funding
Kyoto Fusioneering Raises $63.2 million in Series C Extension and Debt Financing
Oxford Spin-out First Light Fusion Seeks Backing for Inertial Fusion Demonstrator
General Atomics to Build a National Data Ecosystem Aimed at Accelerating Commercial Fusion Power
TVA and Type One Energy to Build 350 MW Fusion Plant
TVA has issued a Letter of Intent (LOI) to Type One Energy regarding the utility’s interest in the potential deployment of Type One Energy’s fusion power plant technology at its former Bull Run Fossil site once it is commercially ready. The LOI also covers potential future use of the prototype facilities as an operator and maintenance training facility for the Infinity Two workforce.
Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) and Type One Energy have expanded their cooperative agreement to develop a 350 MWe fusion pilot power plant called “Infinity Two” at TVA’s former Bull Run Fossil Plant near Oak Ridge, TN, targeting deployment by the mid-2030s. The partnership represents the first commercial contracts signed for a utility-scale fusion power project in the US
It will utilize Type One Energy’s stellarator fusion technology to provide baseload generation capacity. This collaboration positions TVA as the leading U.S. utility in advanced nuclear innovation, addressing growing energy demands from AI and data centers while advancing fusion commercialization timelines.
Infinity Two is a first-generation 350 MWe baseload power plant utilizing Type One Energy’s stellarator fusion technology. According to the press statement by Type One, the stellarator has demonstrated stable, steady-state operation with high efficiency, characteristics which are important for TVA and others in the industry who need to reliably generate on-demand power at competitive prices.
Type One Energy is developing Infinity Two using existing materials and fundamental fusion technologies to support near-term deployment of the technology.
Final decisions and definitive agreements regarding the funding and construction of Infinity Two, as well as any agreements to purchase the energy output, are subject to TVA Board approval, regulatory review, and alignment with TVA’s least-cost planning processes.
Type One leaders told local news media at the announcement event they hope to start constructing Infinity One, the prototype stellarator, in 2026. The prototype is designed to verify aspects of the design and serve as a training platform.
Type One’s lead scientist told Knox News in March that company won’t need a scientific revelation to move the stellarator design forward. As CEO Chris Mowry put it, “This is not a science project.”
“This is an actual commercial fusion power plant that we are embarking on here.”
The Knoxville News reports that TVA’s role as a partner will include development of machining and fabricating some of the components of the stellarator.
TVA CEO Don Moul said the collaboration between the utility and Type One will be educational.
“We have a lot of learning to do. I think that’s the value of being able to have the stellarator here, having our power services shop provide some of the fabrication capabilities and, quite frankly, having some of our staff here help with the operational input with some of the designers so that we make this practical, but also as forward moving as possible.”
Executives from Type One and TVA made the announcement alongside state and local officials at the former Bull Run Fossil Plant site in Clinton, which TVA retired in 2023.
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Proxima Fusion Extends Series A to €200M Total Funding
Proxima Fusion announced an extension to its Series A round with new funding from CDP Venture Capital (Cassa Depositi e Prestiti Group), Italy’s largest venture capital operator, the European Innovation Council Fund (EICF), and Brevan Howard Macro Venture Fund, associated with one of the world’s leading asset managers known for investing in global economic shifts.
The €15 million Series A extension brings the company’s total funding to €200 million ($230M). The EICF equity investment is the latest European public fund to back Proxima, following earlier investments from the DeepTech & Climate Fonds (DTCF) and High–Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF) – both backed by the German Ministry of Economics and Energy – as well as Bayern Kapital, owned by LfA Förderbank Bayern, and the non-profit Max Planck Foundation, which exclusively supports research across the institutes of the Max Planck Society. The new investment from the EICF follows a €2.5 million grant previously awarded to Proxima.
“CDP Venture Capital believes firmly that Europe’s deep tech ecosystem has a key role to play in developing future energy solutions” said Alessandro Scortecci, Chief Investment Officer, Direct Investments at CDP Venture Capital.
Just three months after announcing Europe’s largest-ever fusion round, Proxima has already grown by another 20% to 100 employees and is rapidly converting its new capital into industrial action to anchor its long-term roadmap. With the new capital in the bag, Proxima placed large-scale purchase orders for:
High-temperature superconducting (HTS) tape to secure long-term supply for the mission-critical HTS magnet program;
The manufacturing of structural support plates for its first HTS non-planar magnet, the Stellarator Model Coil (SMC);
Its own in-house cable manufacturing line to accelerate R&D capabilities and produce its first long length SMC cables;
Full size and weight dummy coils and prototype vacuum vessel sections to demonstrate hardware design, manufacturing capability and development of assembly processes for stellarators.
This latest funding will accelerate the company’s engineering progress toward the SMC, which will de-risk major elements of HTS magnet technology for stellarators. Proxima’s ambitious target: bring SMC to life in 2027. In addition, the team is simultaneously completing the design of its net energy gain demo stellarator, Alpha, while evaluating potential building sites across Europe.
About Proxima Fusion
Proxima Fusion spun out of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in 2023 to build the first generation of fusion power plants using QI-HTS stellarators. Proxima has since assembled a team of scientists and engineers from leading companies and institutions including the IPP, MIT, Harvard, SpaceX, Tesla, and McLaren. The firm is taking a simulation-driven approach to engineering that leverages advanced computing and high-temperature superconductors.
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Kyoto Fusioneering Raises $63.2 million in Series C Extension and Debt Financing
Kyoto Fusioneering (KF), a Japanese startup developing the engineering of fusion energy power plants announced the successful completion of new funding totaling $63.2 million through equity and debt financing.
This latest round includes equity financing, with participation from four new investors, notably Kyocera Venture Innovation Fund-I (KVIF-I Limited Partnership, General Partner: Global Brain Corporation), JERA Co, Inc, and Sumitomo Mitsui Trust Bank, Limited.
In addition, KF finalized its Series C extension round, led by 31VENTURES – Global Brain – Growth I GK jointly managed by Mitsui Fudosan Co., Ltd. and Global Brain Corporation, bringing the cumulative total raised in Series C Extension.
To further strengthen its capital base, KF also secured $36 million in debt financing and credit facilities from Japan Finance Corporation, Japan Bank for International Cooperation (JBIC), MUFG Bank, Ltd, Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation, and The Bank of Kyoto, Ltd.
About Kyoto Fusioneering
Kyoto Fusioneering launched the FAST (Fusion by Advanced Superconducting Tokamak) project in November 2024, taking on the role of project leader. FAST represents a private-sector-driven, industry–academia collaboration with the ambitious aim of proving fusion electricity generation within the 2030s in Japan. The initiative brings together leading researchers and companies, both in Japan and worldwide, to tackle the critical engineering challenges of fusion and to accelerate the transition from experimental reactors to practical, commercial-scale energy systems.
FAST’s mission is to prove that a complete fusion power generation system is possible by integrating plasma generation and control through D-T*3 fusion reactions, energy conversion, and fuel systems.
UNITY-1: At the core of this effort is the “UNITY-1” project, which aims to demonstrate how a fusion heat cycle system harnesses and utilizes energy produced by fusion reactions. UNITY-1 has now reached the final stage of validating its power generation technology through a liquid metal loop. The project is on track to achieve a world first: successfully demonstrating power generation technology using a simulated fusion plant*2.
UNITY-2: In addition, the fusion fuel cycle system, which continuously supplies fuel, is undergoing performance testing of individual devices and systems at the company’s new R&D facility, established adjacent to its headquarters in January this year. In 2026, Fusion Fuel Cycles Inc., a joint venture between Kyoto Fusioneering and Canadian Nuclear Laboratories, will begin an integrated demonstration of a fuel cycle system in Canada, under the project “UNITY-2.”
Gyrotron Systems: Kyoto Fusioneering’s plasma heating system—the gyrotron system—has recently been adopted by Tokamak Energy Ltd. in the UK*4, further expanding its footprint in global fusion initiatives.
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Oxford Spin-out First Light Fusion Seeks Backing for Inertial Fusion Demonstrator
First Light Fusion believes it can drive down the costs of nuclear fusion but it needs £150m for a demonstration facility.
First Light Fusion (FLF) has outlined plans for an inertial fusion energy test facility, a £150 million project pitched as a faster, cheaper route to commercial fusion power. The University of Oxford spin-out outlined the company’s concept for high-gain fusion, known as fusion via low-power assembly and rapid excitation, or FLARE.
Gain refers to a process where more energy is converted from the fusion reaction than energy delivered to the fuel, and has long been a barrier to commercial fusion. FLF said its modelling shows the FLARE concept could produce an energy gain of up to 1,000, far higher than the current experimental levels achieved.
Founded in 2011, FLF has attracted more than £78 million in backing from a consortium including IP Group, Oxford Science Enterprises, Salica and Host Plus.
And as the UK prepares to invest £2.5bn into a different kind of fusion reactor, FLF urged the government “not to put all its eggs in one basket”.
Professor Jeremy Chittenden, co-director of the Centre for Inertial Fusion Studies at Imperial College London, said the FLARE concept combines well-established and extensively studied concepts.
“What makes First Light’s approach different is the way in which these concepts have been combined. In addition, the adaptation of First Light’s proven amplifier technology to cylindrical implosions means that the required fusion conditions can be realised using low voltage pulsed power, significantly reducing the cost of both the driver and the fusion targets.”
FLF said its approach differs from the conventional approach to inertial fusion energy (IFE), which is to compress and heat fuel at the same time to achieve ignition. By contrast, FLF’s approach splits this process into two parts. First, it compresses the fuel in a controlled manner and then uses a separate process to ignite it. This generates a “massive surplus of energy”, FLF said, in a process known as a ‘fast fusion’.
The company said this method has “long been researched”, but that it is “now made practical for the first time” using its technology. FLF claims its approach would underpin the design for future commercial reactors, allowing partners to build the systems using FLF technology as the fuel.
FLF said an experimental gain facility using its technology would cost between $100-$200 million, or just 5% of the $5.3 billion (£3.9bn) NIF in California.
The company said it expects to achieve gains above today’s records by the early 2030s, with the demonstrator facility not required for “several years”.
While the company is not seeking funding from the UK government at this stage, FLF said “any government support would be welcomed”.
With the UK government committing £2.5bn towards the STEP fusion project, which uses a process known as magnetic confinement fusion, FLF said the country should “not put all its eggs in one basket” when it comes to fusion energy.
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General Atomics to Build a National Data Ecosystem Aimed at Accelerating Commercial Fusion Power
The multi-institutional project secures four-year DOE funding to unify fusion data and workflows into an accessible nationwide resource
Scientists at General Atomics (GA) announced this month that they will be leading a multi-institutional initiative to create a unified data system for fusion energy research in the United States—called the Fusion Energy Data Ecosystem and Repository (FEDER).
The project will be funded through the U.S. Department of Energy’s Fusion Innovative Research Engine (FIRE) Collaborative, a multimillion-dollar initiative designed to fast-track fusion development, support American innovation and bolster U.S. leadership in the energy sector.
Researchers plan to use FEDER to create a shared, standardized platform that links experimental results, simulation outputs and workflows from national laboratories, universities and private companies, turning today’s disconnected datasets and workflows into a unified community resource that speeds up discovery and brings commercial fusion power closer to reality.
“Fusion research advances fastest when data flows freely and securely rather than remain trapped in isolated silos, proprietary formats, and disconnected analysis tools,” said Dr. Raffi Nazikian, director of Fusion Data Science at General Atomics.
“FEDER will break down barriers between institutions and disciplines, integrating datasets, computational models and research workflows. We will be able to capture new data in FEDER’s living commons and make them available for immediate reuse in the next experiment or simulation.”
GA is joined in the FEDER initiative by a coalition of leading institutions: the San Diego Supercomputer Center at UC San Diego; Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; Idaho National Laboratory; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Plasma Science and Fusion Center; Hewlett Packard Enterprise; UCLA; and West Virginia University.
ogether, their experts in plasma physics, fusion engineering, materials science and high-performance computing will collaborate with other FIRE Collaboratives and research teams nationwide to build the community-driven platform.
“FEDER is an important step toward turning today’s scattered fusion datasets into a unified resource for realizing the full potential of fusion energy,” said Tom Gibbs, developer relations lead for NVIDIA.
“By making siloed data readily accessible and linking it with resources such as National Artificial Intelligence Research Resource and the DOE Integrated Research Infrastructure, the research community can develop the advanced AI models needed for full-scale digital twins that will support the emerging commercial ecosystem.”
In addition to improving reproducibility, transparency and interdisciplinary collaboration, FEDER will integrate cutting-edge platforms—including the Fusion Data Platform, Open Science Data Federation and the National Data Platform—into a powerful, user-friendly service.
“We already have the building blocks. Now it’s time to connect them,” said Dr. Ilkay Altintas, chief data science officer at the San Diego Supercomputer Center.
“Within the first year, FEDER will weave these tools together and offer an accessible, scalable service that will grow into a lasting national resource.”
General Atomics operates the DIII-D National Fusion Facility on behalf of the Department of Energy — the only tokamak currently operating in the United States — and collaborates with scientists and engineers around the world to help make fusion power a reality.
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