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.

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.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems makes no small plans. The company wants to build a 400-MWe magnetic confinement fusion power plant called ARC near Richmond, Va., and begin operating it in the early 2030s. And the plans don’t end there. CFS wants to deploy “thousands” of fusion power plants capable of accelerating a global energy transition.

Many people are familiar with Godzilla as a giant reptilian monster that emerged from the sea off the coast of Japan, the product of radioactive contamination. These days, there is a new Godzilla, but it has a positive—and entirely fact-based—association with nuclear energy. This one has emerged inside the Tokamak Assembly Preparation Building of ITER in southern France.

Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory is leading a new initiative with the goal of using AI technology to accelerate the development of fusion energy research through high-fidelity computer simulations. The project includes national laboratories, universities, technology companies, and other partners.

Simulation, Technology, and Experiment Leveraging Learning-Accelerated Research enabled by AI (STELLAR-AI) has been developed as part of the Department of Energy’s Genesis Mission, which was established by presidential executive order last year to speed up the application of AI in scientific research.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems, a fusion firm headquartered in Devens, Mass., is collaborating with California-based computing infrastructure company NVIDIA and Germany-based technology conglomerate Siemens to develop a digital twin of its SPARC fusion machine. The cooperative work among the companies will focus on applying artificial intelligence and data- and project-management tools as the SPARC digital twin is developed.

Fusion energy for commercial use is a technology that is yet to be realized, but one company is already setting its sights on taking it from land to sea.

The article “Finding the shadows in a fusion system faster with AI,” published by the Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, details the public-private partnership among PPPL, Commonwealth Fusion Systems, and Oak Ridge National Laboratory. The partnership has led to a new artificial intelligence approach that is faster at finding what’s known as “magnetic shadows” in a fusion vessel: “safe havens protected from the intense heat of the plasma.”

China has established a state-owned fusion energy company, China Fusion Energy Co. (CFEC), as a subsidiary of the China National Nuclear Corporation with the goal of accelerating the commercialization of fusion energy. According to a report by People’s Daily Online, the new company has a registered capital of 15 billion yuan (about $2.1 billion).

Westinghouse Electric Company announced that it has signed a $180 million contract with the ITER Organization for the assembly of the vacuum vessel for the fusion reactor being built in southern France. Designed to demonstrate the scientific and technological feasibility of fusion power, the ITER tokamak will be the world’s largest experimental fusion facility.

The French magnetic confinement fusion tokamak known as WEST maintained a plasma in February for more than 22 minutes—1,337 seconds, to be precise—and “smashed” the previous record plasma duration for a tokamak with a 25 percent improvement, according to the CEA, which operates the machine. The previous 1,006-second record was set by China’s EAST just a few weeks prior. Records are made to be broken, but this rapid progress illustrates a collective, global increase in plasma confinement expertise, aided by tungsten in key components.

The ITER organization (IO) recently published an article asking, “Have you ever wondered what it’s like inside an operating tokamak?” For speculative answers, the international nuclear fusion project turned to electrical engineer Michael Walsh, the new head of ITER’s Fusion Technology—Instrumentation & Control Division and previous head of ITER’s Diagnostics Division.

Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) has announced that it plans to build a fusion power plant, named ARC, at the James River Industrial Park in Chesterfield County, Va.—and that it expects to be the first company to make fusion power available at grid scale.

Leadership of the United Kingdom’s STEP (Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production) fusion program has transitioned to U.K. Industrial Fusion Solutions Ltd. (UKIFS), a wholly owned subsidiary of the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA). UKIFS was established in February 2023 to lead a public-private partnership that will design, build, and operate the STEP prototype fusion energy plant in Nottinghamshire in England’s East Midlands region.

Commercial nuclear power is illegal in Australia, and it has been since the 1990s. This past June, however, the country’s main opposition party announced plans to build seven commercial nuclear reactors in the 2030s and 2040s on sites presently occupied by aging coal-fired plants—should the party’s Liberal–National Coalition win power in federal elections next year. This statement has reignited a public debate regarding the potential role of nuclear energy in Australia.

Earlier this month, General Atomics made its Fusion Synthesis Engine (FUSE) software available to others who want to design and build magnetic confinement fusion power plants.

Start talking about dust in a vacuum, and some people will think of household chores. But dust has featured in recent nuclear science and engineering headlines in curious ways: ITER is deploying oversized dust covers inspired by space satellites in the south of France, while at Yale University, researchers have watched every move of a dust-sized particle levitating in a laser beam for telltale twitches that indicate radioactive decay.

JT-60SA (Japan Torus-60 Super Advanced) is the world’s largest superconducting tokamak device. Its goal is the earlier realization of fusion energy (see Fig. 1). Fusion is the energy that powers the Sun, and just 1 gram of deuterium-tritium (D-T) fuel produces enormous energy—the equivalent of 8 tons of crude oil.

Last fall, the JT-60SA project announced an important milestone: the achievement of the tokamak’s first plasma. This article describes the objectives of the JT-60SA project, achievements in the operation campaign for the first plasma, and next steps.

A computer rendering of a tokamak device designed by students at the University of New South Wales. (Credit: UNSW)

A recent article on Australia’s ABC News website highlighted the work of undergraduate physics and engineering students at the University of New South Wales (UNSW) to design, build, and operate their own small nuclear fusion reactor. The ambitious work, known as the AtomCraft project, is being led by associate professor Patrick Burr with the objective of producing a student-built tokamak reactor by the end of 2026.

Australia-based HB-11 Energy and U.K.-based Tokamak Energy have partnered with UNSW for the project.

Research goals: The AtomCraft project has the following research goals for participating students, according to its website:

Our team aims [to] make the world’s first fusion reactor entirely designed, built, and operated by students. And [to] do so in 2 years. You will develop innovative solutions to engineering challenges across many engineering disciplines, work closely with industry partners, and be part a vibrant team of enthusiastic and dedicated people who want to push the boundaries of what is possible with fusion energy.