Commonwealth Fusion Systems, headquartered in Devens, Mass., has been selected by the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority as the first international partner for the agency’s Lithium Breeding Tritium Innovation (LIBRTI) program. LIBRTI is a U.K. government initiative with the goal of demonstrating the feasibility of fusion power plant–relevant fuel technologies.

The UKAEA is creating a first-of-a-kind technology facility, called the LIBRTI Facility, at its Culham Campus. It will house a test bed made of a 14-MeV neutron source in a shielded blockhouse. This structure will be surrounded by rooms for the assembly and disassembly of multiton breeder blanket prototypes.

Lancaster University in England is the home of an unusual nuclear power simulator that can be used for both fusion and fission education.

The central magnet bundle for the National Spherical Torus Experiment–Upgrade (NSTX-U) at Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory has been delivered to the facility in New Jersey, the national lab recently reported. The school bus–sized, 23,000-pound magnet bundle, manufactured at Elytt Energy in Bilbao, Spain, consists of a toroidal field magnet system and an ohmic-heating magnet system.

Thea Energy has announced it is working with Nvidia and Synopsys to develop a digital twin of its stellarator fusion power plant concept, called Helios.

The team, which also includes Argonne National Laboratory and Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, will “analyze and scale vast datasets, rapidly evolve Thea Energy’s plant designs, and stress-test system operation in a workflow that outpaces traditional tools,” according to the company.

General Atomics announced it is developing design concepts in collaboration with the Department of Energy for the Fusion Blanket Component Test Facility (BCTF), which will test full-scale breeding blankets.

“No one has tested a fusion blanket at this scale. While there are more research and development challenges ahead, a BCTF brings us closer to turning fusion from proven science into practical, sustainable power,” said Anantha Krishnan, senior vice president of the General Atomics Energy Group.

On June 9, Tennessee became the first U.S. state to implement its own regulatory framework for nuclear fusion machines. It’s a notable step in the rapidly developing field of fusion regulation, and will help Tennessee prepare to regulate Type One Energy’s proposed commercial fusion power plant near Oak Ridge.

The Department of Energy has approved Xcimer Energy's Athena fusion power plant preconceptual technical design. With this milestone achieved, the Denver, Colo.-based company is now moving forward with its plans to develop economical laser inertial confinement fusion using two beamlines, gas laser technology, and a molten salt fusion chamber.

The National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory demonstrated net energy gain from inertial confinement fusion in 2022 using solid-state glass lasers and 192 beamlines.

The Department of Energy has released what it is calling a “finalized” national strategy to accelerate the development and commercialization of fusion energy, with the goal of scaling up the private fusion sector by the mid-2030s.

Released on June 9, the Fusion Science and Technology (FS&T) Roadmap builds on an earlier road map document the DOE released in October 2025, which itself echoed plans issued by the DOE’s Office of Fusion Energy Sciences in 2023 and 2024.

According to the DOE, this finalized road map brings together fusion science, technology, infrastructure, workforce development, and commercialization priorities into a single national strategy, outlining how the DOE, industry, universities, and national laboratories will work together to accelerate the path toward U.S. commercial fusion energy.

The American Nuclear Society journal Fusion Science and Technology (FS&T) has named a new technical editor: Kathryn McCarthy of Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The announcement came during the opening plenary at this week’s ANS Annual Conference in Denver, Colo. McCarthy’s term begins on July 1.

The ITER Organization has announced that its magnet cold test facility is now in operational mode, allowing the preinstallation testing of superconducting magnets at the fusion reactor’s low operating temperature of 4 Kelvin (−269°C; −452°F) and full current of 68 kiloampere (kA).

A team of scientists from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has observed, imaged, and characterized the early stages of hydrogen-uranium corrosion for the first time, the lab announced recently.

The Canadian Medical Isotope Ecosystem, which is backed by the Canadian federal government’s Strategic Innovation Fund, has announced funding for a collaboration between Promation, Astral Systems, and McMaster University to establish a proof-of-concept approach for a fusion reaction–based copper-67 production process with automated postirradiation isotope separation and purification.

The project team for the world’s largest operational tokamak, JT-60SA, has announced that it is getting ready to resume operations. The machine has been undergoing upgrades since 2024, with testing of newly installed equipment occurring since February 27.

Ames National Laboratory has announced a new tool that combines artificial intelligence and physics-based modeling to identify materials that can be used in fusion systems, where materials must withstand intense heat, radiation, and mechanical stress.

Three companies have come together to form the U.K. Infinity Fusion Consortium with the objective of developing the first private sector–led fusion power plant in the United Kingdom using existing “commercially credible” technologies.

The consortium is expected to benefit from the combination of the three partners’ expertise. Tennessee-based fusion start-up Type One Energy brings its 400-MWe Infinity Two stellarator fusion power plant design. British fusion technology company Tokamak Energy has its HTS magnet technology and manufacturing background. Texas-based consulting firm AECOM has international engineering and infrastructure capabilities.

The Department of Energy announced a 10-year project agreement with the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) to advance research on the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator.

“This agreement reflects our deep commitment to international partnerships that accelerate progress in fusion energy,” said Jean Paul Allain, director of the Office of Fusion at the DOE. “The collaboration between the United States and IPP on W7-X has been extraordinarily productive for more than 20 years already, and this agreement pushes us forward into the next decade and beyond.”

Three research groups are reporting fusion-related developments, including ongoing work toward spin-polarized fusion, a new plasma diagnostic tool heading to the National Ignition Facility, and a materials science project that could impact the design of inertial confinement fusion fuel targets.

The French Authority for Nuclear Safety and Radiation Protection (ASNR) has published a decision on how it will be regulating ITER, opting to approve the organization’s request to exclude its vacuum vessel from French and European pressure equipment rules.

A comparison of real SEM tungsten microstructures (left column) with machine learning–generated synthetic microstructures (right) for different values of the model setting parameters. Adjusting the model setting controls how diverse or sharp the synthetic microstructures appear. (Image: ORNL, DOE)

Researchers have developed a model to generate images that serve as synthetic data close-ups of tungsten surfaces under fusion reactor conditions.

Tungsten is a top-choice material for plasma-facing components (PFCs) in fusion machines, so understanding tungsten’s performance is critical to the safety and longevity of component designs.

Yesterday, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Inertia Enterprises announced a strategic research and development partnership to address fusion challenges including laser development, fusion target design, and target fabrication technologies on the path to a commercial power plant.