Funding the fusion revolution – Billions of dollars are pouring into fusion energy, reflecting increased hopes that it could become a commercially viable source of clean power in the near future.

From the article

“If you walked into a room of fusion scientists in 2018 or 2019 and said there were going to be fusion startups, and venture capital funding to the tune of $9 billion, you would have been laughed out of the room,” says [Nuno Loureiro](https://energy.mit.edu/profile/nuno-loureiro/), the director of MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC).

The fusion landscape today is entirely different, thanks to research breakthroughs that have sparked an unprecedented infusion of investment dollars. Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) recently closed an $863 million Series B2 funding round, bringing the MIT spinoff’s total capital raised to nearly $3 billion. The UK government recently announced a £2.5 billion commitment to fusion development, Germany committed [€2 billion](https://www.world-nuclear-news.org/articles/germany-boosts-funding-for-fusion-research), and the Shanghai government has created a [¥10 billion fund](https://english.www.gov.cn/news/202409/08/content_WS66dcdcafc6d0868f4e8eab97.html) to support fusion research. And in October, the U.S. Department of Energy published a [roadmap](https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2025-10/fusion-s%26t-roadmap-101625.pdf) identifying key steps the U.S. needs to take by the mid-2030s to lead the world in commercial fusion energy deployment, including expanded public-private partnerships.

Also from the article

Loureiro notes that the race for fusion also has geopolitical implications, with China and others striving to be the first to produce fusion energy at scale. Despite the influx of private capital, U.S. government funding for fusion has been largely flat for two decades, he says, with annual spending hovering around the same amount as the CFS Series B2 round.