There is a global race to make fusion power a reality. India must step up investments soon

The Print

3 days ago

But, surprisingly, they do not seem to have engendered much interest or excitement in most parts of the globe, certainly not in India. I am referring to two very exciting power purchase agreements entered by Google and Microsoft with two different startups — Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Helion Energy, respectively. Both the startups have made very significant advances toward generating energy by harnessing nuclear fusion.
They will unfold within the realm of energy generation, driven by the nearly daily breakthroughs and innovations taking place in nuclear fusion technology.
In recent times, two very notable and path–breaking technology–related events have occurred that may eventually help rescue our planet from the grave dangers of climate change. The two remarkable events shall most likely be the harbingers of the eventual demise of the oil and gas industry.
Google expects the supply of fusion power by the early 2030s and Microsoft expects to buy electrical power as early as 2028 from a nuclear fusion power plant. The reason why this is so exceptional and impressive is that up until a decade or so ago, the efficient and practical generation of energy from nuclear fusion seemed very much a distant reality. To give an idea of the power nuclear fusion can generate, we need to only look at the sun. The process that powers the Sun — and also the stars — is nothing but nuclear fusion.
What is nuclear fusion? Simply put, it is a process in which light atomic nuclei are fused together to form a heavier nucleus. It is different from the process of nuclear fission — widely used to generate electricity — that involves splitting a heavy atomic nucleus into smaller nuclei. Both the processes result in huge amounts of energy. However, nuclear fission carries many potential dangers and has always triggered debates and controversies. While nuclear fusion releases more energy than what's possible via chemical reactions or fission, it also minimises radioactive waste and carries a greatly reduced risk of catastrophic failure. The primary challenge in nuclear fusion lies in achieving the temperatures in the range of hundreds of millions of degrees Celsius and managing the attendant technological challenges for a self-sustaining reaction — known as ignition.
Innovations and breakthroughs
Notable developments that are aiding the production of energy in efficient and practical ways include new materials that enable the creation of high-temperature superconductors. This has in turn resulted in smaller, more powerful magnets, leading to more compact reactor designs and accelerated timelines. Additionally, the pace of innovation has also been aided by advances in machine learning and AI that have engendered modern computational tools allowing for real-time uses and applications.
There are many other developments in technology that are making efficient energy generation from nuclear fusion a reality. Even as I pen this article on the current status of nuclear fusion technology, exciting breakthroughs are occurring with greater and greater frequency. The other very interesting facet of this story is the fact that it is not just governments that are driving the advances. Leading companies and startups in many parts of the world ranging from China to Europe to North America are driving major breakthroughs. This has brought about the emergence of well-funded startups and public-private partnerships that has injected urgency, competition, and diverse engineering philosophies into the field. The one disappointing and even worrying aspect of this game — for me personally — is that India does not seem to be anywhere in the picture when it comes to investing in the very promising private players.
At the same time, let us not lose sight of the fact that — as almost always — the public sector continues to play a crucial role in fusion research, supporting large-scale experiments and international collaboration. To put the situation into a proper perspective, I list here some very promising public sector initiatives.
– The International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), an international collaboration involving 35 countries, is the world's largest fusion project. Located in France, ITER aims to produce net energy gain from fusion. As of 2025, the project is in advanced stages of construction. Once complete, it will demonstrate the feasibility of sustained fusion and provide invaluable data for future commercial reactors. The very heartening point to note is that India is playing a very important role in the ITER project. It has designed and manufactured the cryostat, an enormous 30-metre tall and 30-metre wide chamber that houses the entire ITER Tokamak reactor. India has also built the cryolines that carry liquid helium to cool the magnets to minus 269 degrees Celsius, the temperature needed for superconductivity.
– The National Ignition Facility (NIF) is another initiative. Located at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, it uses powerful lasers to compress hydrogen fuel pellets. In December 2022, NIF achieved a historic milestone: a fusion experiment that produced more energy than it was supplied by the lasers — a landmark for inertial confinement fusion.
– The Joint European Torus (JET) in the UK, a nuclear fusion facility, remains a testbed for plasma science, recently setting records for sustained energy output.
– In China, the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) has set world records for plasma temperature and duration. (A tokamak is a machine used for producing controlled fusion reactions in hot plasma.)
It is also heartening to see that globally the private sector sees a vast opportunity in this realm of nuclear fusion energy generation. Below I list a few of the many leading players.
– The Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2021, successfully tested a record-breaking superconducting magnet, validating its core technology. The company aims to demonstrate net energy gain in the next few years and commercialise fusion power plants by the early 2030s.
– Based in California, TAE Technologies pursues a unique approach to nuclear fusion energy called field-reversed configuration, and has demonstrated its capability convincingly. It is developing its next machine called Copernicus, with the goal of achieving net energy gain. TAE is also investing heavily in advanced particle accelerators and AI-driven plasma control.
– Helion Energy, headquartered in Washington, uses a unique fusion technology. In 2021, Helion announced it had achieved a plasma temperature of 100 million degrees Celsius, a key engineering threshold. The startup aims to deliver electricity to the grid from a fusion device by the late 2020s.
– Canada-based General Fusion is developing magnetised target fusion, wherein plasma is compressed using a liquid metal piston. Backed by major investors and the Canadian government, General Fusion is building a demonstration plant adjacent to the UK's Culham Centre for Fusion Energy.
Also read: This Bengaluru startup's leading India's nuclear fusion research—to light up a billion homes
The challenges
Lest we get too carried away, it will be worthwhile to list a few of the formidable technical and economic challenges in generating power using nuclear fusion.
– Net energy gain: Achieving and sustaining ignition for commercially relevant periods is still a major challenge, particularly under realistic power plant conditions.
– Materials and component lifetimes: Components must be built to withstand intense neutron bombardment and extreme thermal cycles for years without degradation.
– Cost and scalability: Nuclear fusion energy must be economically competitive with current renewable energy and fission energy sources, necessitating breakthroughs in design simplicity, maintenance, and mass production.
– Regulatory and supply chain issues: Scaling nuclear fusion infrastructure requires supportive policy, new supply chains for rare isotopes (like tritium and helium-3), and standardised safety protocols.
The nuclear fusion sector is experiencing dynamic growth, with timelines for supplying electricity to the grid shrinking from 'decades away' to within the 2030s. The convergence of scientific knowledge, robust engineering, and entrepreneurial energy places fusion closer than ever to commercial realisation. Governments and private funders are investing billions, and global cooperation remains crucial. As new machines come online and lessons are learned, the dream of practical, safe, and inexhaustible fusion energy is within sight — a potential revolution in the way humanity powers its civilisation.
India's government has been actively involved in the ITER project and, through the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE), recognises nuclear fusion power as a critical element of the country's long-term energy security. The DAE plans to support several demonstration projects and aims to begin constructing two 1,000 MWe grid-connected fusion reactors by 2050. However, I must also mention that India needs to be connected with the private players in the race. I wish we had invested a couple of billion dollars in two or three of the more promising startups when, just a few years ago, emerging technologies were beginning to show genuine promise. We would have been in an enviable situation today, and over time our dependence on other nations for energy needs would have diminished significantly.
Dinesh Singh is the former Vice Chancellor of the University of Delhi and adjunct professor of mathematics at the University of Houston, Texas, USA. He tweets @DineshSinghEDU. Views are personal.
(Edited by Aamaan Alam Khan)