Commonwealth Fusion Systems

"We actually think fusion fits a lot of the themes that President Trump and the Republicans in Congress are talking about." –Trent Bauserman, Head of Federal Affairs for Commonwealth Fusion Systems, speaking to Nick Sobczyk at Axios. Fusion energy is poised to start powering American communities in less a decade. It'll strengthen energy security, meet fast-growing energy demands, and help enable AI and economic growth. The stakes are high if the US wishes to maintain first-mover advantage in developing this technology and benefiting from that innovation. Read the full article here: https://lnkd.in/exHiv9Kb #FusionEnergy #TechInvestment

Chris Wright, in his first appearance as Energy Secretary, offered a vision for the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) that seeks to cement US leadership in energy, to make electricity more abundant and more affordable, and to “unleash American energy innovation.” Those goals are good news for fusion. Growing up, Wright was inspired to tackle the challenge of energy generation, he said. That brought him straight to the roots of Commonwealth Fusion Systems: the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. “I went to MIT for only one reason: They had these two tokamaks — Alcator A and C — that looked like a promising path to fusion energy,” he said. “I came as a 17-year-old kid to work on energy.” At CFS, we’re now working on a tokamak of our own, SPARC, designed to demonstrate net fusion energy in 2027. After that comes our first fusion power plant, ARC, set to put watts on the grid in the early 2030s. Fusion energy commercialization holds the promise of abundant, clean energy that will help meet the fast-growing electricity demand in the US and address humanity’s biggest problems. We’re all in, and we’re going full tilt to fulfill that promise. See the Secretarial Order mentioning fusion energy here: https://lnkd.in/gEANPk2f And DOE's new fusion energy website here: https://lnkd.in/grxZgHeu #FusionEnergy

The CFS team hosted Massachusetts Lt. Gov. Kim Driscoll and Brooke M. Thomson, President of the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, for a tour of our magnet factory and SPARC facility at our Devens, Mass., headquarters. The Healey-Driscoll administration has been a strong supporter of CFS and fusion energy, and we were thrilled to show Lt. Gov. Driscoll the rapid growth and progress here in Massachusetts. Jessica Strunkin, Kristen Cullen, and Jennifer Ganten were grateful for the chance to accompany them during their visit.

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has a new tool in its toolbox for building the fusion energy future: the Private Facility Research Program (PFR). It’s an opportunity for university and laboratory researchers to win government funding when joining our SPARC effort. It’s a good signal that the US fusion program is pushing toward commercialization. Interested? Researchers must begin applying to DOE by Feb. 19. Read about it at our blog: https://lnkd.in/e_7skw3T

“We’re about halfway through building the first prototype outside of Boston. In about 2 years we’ll turn this machine on. That’ll be an important point in the world where we’ll have, for the first time, industrial-scale fusion power being created by people.” – our CEO Bob Mumgaard, speaking to NDTV Group Executive Editor Vishnu Som at #WEF2025. Bob also addressed one big difference between our fusion energy compared to the older fission nuclear energy approach: “In fusion you don’t have the long-lived nuclear waste — the many generations where you have to keep track of it. You still have some byproducts you need to keep track of, but it’s on the decade time scale. But really importantly, you don’t have the pollution. You don’t have the CO2, you don’t have the particulates.” You can watch the full interview here: https://lnkd.in/esQhS-Qq #FusionEnergy #EnergyTransition

Our CEO Bob Mumgaard reflects on #WEF2025 at Davos: "Everyone was all in on AI — for good or bad, it dominated the conversation. It's going to need a lot of clean, baseload energy. Those closest to it knew this; those further out don’t yet understand this bottleneck." #WEF2025 #FusionEnergy #PowerMoves #AI

This year I carried the fusion energy message to the World Economic Forum. Hundreds of business and government leaders gather in Davos, Switzerland, for an update about what’s happening around the world, and fusion was literally on the agenda. Its potential to supply the clean, carbon-free energy that’s key to electrifying everything from transportation and industry to home heating and powering AI was emerging as a topic. I’m grateful to the World Economic Forum and Jeremy Jurgens for the invitation and the chance to help discuss the multidisciplinary work. For those who know me, these big meetings are not my favorite events to attend, but it was a busy but fruitful trip. I contributed to a panel discussion on deploying advanced technology, sharing some of our own experience in areas like regulatory oversight and talent development. Hopefully that will help others who are building tough technologies. I also participated in a Bloomberg round table on scaling energy in humanity’s future. It’s clear the computing industry’s wave of AI and data center capability can’t scale without a reliable, sustainable energy source. At The New York Times’ Climate Fixers debate, I especially enjoyed the discussion with Laurence Tubiana and Jennifer Morris and the thoughtful exchange with Fatou Jong and David Gelles on making fusion more accessible around the world. Fusion energy isn’t fundamentally limited by resources like oil deposits or cloudless days, and internationally, fusion energy promises to drastically improve energy security. The meeting was also a chance to update leaders on many fronts about the promise and increasing speed of fusion, from large energy companies to international agencies. Commonwealth Fusion Systems convened a group of leaders to preview the impact of fusion on business and society — I appreciated the candor, curiosity, and commitment in our discussion. We’re at the beginning of a massive shift, and we need to get it right. Dozens of people I talked to learned about fusion, but I learned, too. • Most people I spoke with knew three things about fusion: it’s energy, it’s important, and it’s accelerating. Past that we have work to do to continue to educate about the benefits and differences.  • Everyone was all in on AI — for good or bad, it dominated the conversation. It's going to need a lot of clean, baseload energy. Those closest to it knew this; those further don’t yet understand this bottleneck. • In a world with lots of challenges and changes, bringing people together to hash it out opens up interesting perspectives. More dialogue is better than less.    Thanks also for support from those who share our vision for abundant fusion energy and our sense of urgency for making it happen, including Marc Benioff, Bill Gates and Breakthrough Energy , and Vinod Khosla and Khosla Ventures. #WEF2025 #FusionEnergy #EnergyTransition #PowerMoves

“There are companies like Commonwealth Fusion that are very close — the energy going out will be more than the energy coming in. So fusion could be huge in the next 5 to 10 years.” –Steve Pagliuca, senior advisor to Bain Capital, the firm’s former managing director and co-chair, and co-owner of the Celtics, at #WEF2025 in Davos, Switzerland. Why the investments in fusion? “Because you have to power these facilities to get us the power we need to run the AI,” he said in conversation with Maria Bartiromo on Fox Business Network. #FusionEnergy #AI #Davos

The cryostat base, which is a foundational piece for SPARC, our fusion demonstration machine, is on its way to Commonwealth Fusion Systems. This year is a big year for us as more and more pieces come together for SPARC.

“It’s easy to fall into a trap that because energy has been done a certain way, it will always be done that way.” Today at the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland, our CEO Bob Mumgaard said our work to bring fusion energy to the grid means it’s also time to rethink how we power our homes, vehicles, and industries. WEF attracts the world’s movers and shakers from government and business, and Bob shared the stage with notable figures like Kimberly Budil, the director of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; Sophie Hermans, Minister of Climate Policy and Green Growth of the Netherlands; Hans Kobler, Founder of Energy Impact Partners; and Xin Baoan, Chairman of China' Global Energy Interconnection Development and Cooperation Organization. Here’s some of what Bob had to share: • Fusion will change energy. Instead of being limited by resources, energy will tap into technology industry advantages like steadily improving products and dropping prices. • The world’s top brains are tackling energy, filling university programs and launching startups. “The energy sector is actually the hardest sector to get into at the hardest universities. We're going to see a pipeline fill and then 10 years from now, a whole bunch of technologies to pick from.” • Fusion regulations exemplify the benefits that a fresh look can bring. “Five years ago, there was no regulation. That didn’t stop us. We started to build a plant and we said we'll figure it out. Now that regulation is set, and it's a completely different regulation in the United States than nuclear power. It’s much more innovation-forward.” • Fighting climate change isn’t necessarily a zero-sum game in which progress in one area means problems in another. Instead, the fight will spawn huge, beneficial new industries. “It’s a giant problem — but it’s a giant solution.” You can watch the panel here: https://lnkd.in/g7Femf4m #WEF2025 #FusionEnergy