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First-of-its-kind report, "Enabling Commercial Fusion" published
First-of-its-kind report,...
Tech to market

First-of-its-kind report, “Enabling Commercial Fusion” published

David Cohen-Tanugi is the Venture Builder for Proto Ventures, MIT's venture studio, which is currently focusing on fusion and clean energy. Cohen-Tanugi is embedded at the PSFC and is the lead author of the new report, "Enablabling Commercial Fusion: Venture and Technology Opportunities for a Growing Fusion Industry".

Maximillian Major

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Remi Delaporte-Mathurin

Peter Do

Ernie Doeg

Fangliang Dong

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Darin Ernst

Jose Estrada

A young white woman with medium-length dark hair and a teal necklace smiles broadly

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David Fischer

Ivan Garcia

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An older white man with dark hair and a dark beard looks serious

Theodore Golfinopoulos

Malcolm Gould

Robert Granetz

Daniel Hachmeister Ferreira Da Costa

Soren Hansen

Aaron Ho

Yasen Hou

Nathan Howard

An older white woman with short white hair and frame-less glasses smiles broadly

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James Irby

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Elizabeth Kowalski

A young brown man with medium-length dark hair smiles shyly while crossing his arms

Arunav Kumar

Stephen Lane-Walsh

Rick Leccacorvi

Yijun Lin

Mark R. London

Alessandro Marinoni

Rebecca Masline

Philip C. Michael

A young white woman with long straight brown hair smiles

Christina Migliore

Theo Mouratidis

A young white man with medium-lenght light brown hair and bright blue eyes smiles mildly while crossing his arms

Marco Muraca

Rick Murray

Paola Muscente

Filipe Novais

A younger white man with full dark hair and a beard smiles

Enrico Panontin

A middle-aged Asian man with short dark hair and a sage green 1/4 zip smiles mildly

Dongkeun Park

A younger white man with sandy hair and a short sandy beard, wearing a red and navy plaid button down.

Ethan Peterson

Samuel Pierson

Abhay K. Ram

Cristina Rea

A young white man with coiffed dark hair and glasses gives a slight smile

James Ridzon

Gabriel Rigon

A young a white man with dark coiffed hair and glasses gives a broad, friendly smile

Pablo Rodriguez-Fernandez

Jon Christian Rost

Michael Rowell

Ian Rudnick

Fernando Santoro

Alex Saperstein

Brandon Savage

Stefano Segantin

Fredrick Séguin

4 min read
01

Fusion power is moving from lab to market and creating commercial opportunities for investors, entrepreneurs, researchers, and corporations, according to a new report from MIT’s Proto Ventures and the MIT Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC).

 

“Fusion is entering the commercial era,” said report co-author David Cohen-Tanugi, Venture Builder at Proto Ventures. “We’re now in an era where the design and engineering of fusion power plants is happening in the private sector, with dozens of companies that have collectively raised billions of dollars.”

 

The report, titled “Enabling Commercial Fusion: Venture & Technology Opportunities for a Growing Fusion Industry,” offers a roadmap for directing research, creating business plans, investing in ventures, and setting policy around the path to build the first fusion pilot plant in the next decade, Cohen-Tanugi said.

 

“It’s happened in many other scientific endeavors before, where at some point this goes from a tool not just for scientific discovery but to change people’s lives,” said co-author Dennis Whyte, former director of the PSFC and faculty director of Proto Ventures. “Fusion has reached that inflection point.”

 

The report, unveiled on Feb. 21 at the 2nd annual FusionXInvest conference, outlines opportunities for third-party suppliers selling goods and services to the fusion industry.

Read the full report online here.

02
From Academia to Impact

A key example of the growth of fusion power as a budding commercial enterprise is the FusionXInvest conference, which drew more than 160 attendees to MIT’s Samberg Conference Center. Whyte and Cohen-Tanugi noted the diverse participants ranged from representatives of utility companies and government agencies to legal firms and venture capital investors.

 

“This is no longer simply a plasma physics challenge. Now there also are questions of financing, policy, engineering, systems integration, and electricity markets, and so on,” Cohen-Tanugi said. “That’s the evolution we’re seeing today, and that’s what made possible an event like the FusionX conference. And the fact that it’s being hosted at MIT confirms MIT’s leadership position in this emerging commercial space.”

 

The advent of a dynamic fusion startup scene has become possible thanks to a series of fusion breakthroughs at MIT and other universities coupled with substantial investment. At MIT, a key breakthrough came from a class project investigating smaller, more powerful fusion device magnets in a PSFC fusion design class taught by Whyte. In 2016, Whyte, his former students, and an MIT postdoc went on to found Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), which still holds the record for the most Series B funding ($1.8B) ever raised in Massachusetts.

 

“It’s not that there’s not science to be done in fusion, but the attitude around fusion and our goal has changed. The goal is not just discovery, the goal is impact,” Whyte said.

03
Proto Ventures Finds White Spaces in Commercial Fusion

The new report is the first output from the collaboration between PSFC and Proto Ventures. Since 2023, Proto Ventures’ venture builder has been embedded in the PSFC to identify and build new venture opportunities in clean energy and fusion.

 

“Where are the gaps in the market to making fusion power possible? Finding those opportunities – those white spaces – that is really what sets Proto Ventures apart.” said Proto Ventures Executive Director Gene Keselman.

 

Whyte emphasized that partnering with Proto Ventures introduces innovative organizational strategies aimed at transitioning clean energy research from the lab to real world.

 

“Technical innovations by themselves will not get us there. We have to adapt to the special requirements and difficulties that come with fusion, the scale and complexities of the integrations, and the multidisciplinary aspects of it,” Whyte said.

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Maximillian Major

Enrique Zapata Cornejo

Liangjun Shao

Minuk Jung

Rian Chandra

Nitzan Saadon

Jintao Hu

Elizabeth Bliss

Timothy Heidcamp

James Dark

Rishab Datta; a black and white photo of a young man with dark hair, smiling and wearing a suit

Rishab Datta

Ifeoma A Ijeli

Denisse Cordova Carrizales

Tuomas Sebastian Ralph Laakkonen

Alec Damsell

Leo Murphy

A young brown man stares seriously

Abhishek Saraswat

A young Asian man with wire-framed glasses and a big smile wears a navy suit and red tie

Xavior Wang

A young Asian girl smiles at the camera

Jiyun Han

Ricardo Antonio De Levante Rodriguez

Xinyan Wang

Emily Edwards

Leon Nichols

Angus Wylie

Portrait photo

David Cohen-Tanugi

Steven Thomas

David J. Arsenault

A middle-aged Korean man with medium length black hair and large round glasses gives a small smile

Seung Gyou Baek

Jan-Peter Bähner

Sean Ballinger

Juan Bascunan

William Beck

Lee Berkowitz

Rachel Bielajew

Leslie Bromberg

Carl Bunge

William M. Burke, Jr.

Mirela Cengher

A young white woman with long curly brown hair and a star wars button down gives a friendly smile

Sarah Chamberlain

Zhiwei Chang

Peng Chen

Andre Chouinard

A middle-aged white man with rectangular glasses and close-cropped dark hair smiles mildly

Cesar Clauser

Remi Delaporte-Mathurin

Peter Do

Ernie Doeg

Fangliang Dong

Jeff Doody

Portrait photo

Bamidele Ebiwonjumi

Darin Ernst

Jose Estrada

A young white woman with medium-length dark hair and a teal necklace smiles broadly

Sara Ferry

David Fischer

Ivan Garcia

Raul Gerru Miguelanez

An older white man with dark hair and a dark beard looks serious

Theodore Golfinopoulos

Malcolm Gould

Robert Granetz

Daniel Hachmeister Ferreira Da Costa

Soren Hansen

Aaron Ho

Yasen Hou

Nathan Howard

An older white woman with short white hair and frame-less glasses smiles broadly

Amanda Hubbard

Josep Ingla Aynes

James Irby

Portrait photo of Alexey Kaplan

Alexey Kaplan

Elizabeth Kowalski

A young brown man with medium-length dark hair smiles shyly while crossing his arms

Arunav Kumar

Stephen Lane-Walsh

Rick Leccacorvi

Yijun Lin

Mark R. London

Alessandro Marinoni

Rebecca Masline

Philip C. Michael

A young white woman with long straight brown hair smiles

Christina Migliore

Theo Mouratidis

A young white man with medium-lenght light brown hair and bright blue eyes smiles mildly while crossing his arms

Marco Muraca

Rick Murray

Paola Muscente

Filipe Novais

A younger white man with full dark hair and a beard smiles

Enrico Panontin

A middle-aged Asian man with short dark hair and a sage green 1/4 zip smiles mildly

Dongkeun Park

A younger white man with sandy hair and a short sandy beard, wearing a red and navy plaid button down.

Ethan Peterson

Samuel Pierson

Abhay K. Ram

Cristina Rea

A young white man with coiffed dark hair and glasses gives a slight smile

James Ridzon

Gabriel Rigon

A young a white man with dark coiffed hair and glasses gives a broad, friendly smile

Pablo Rodriguez-Fernandez

Jon Christian Rost

Michael Rowell

Ian Rudnick

Fernando Santoro

Alex Saperstein

Brandon Savage

Stefano Segantin

Fredrick Séguin