In the battle related to the nation's fortune, China has taken action on this super plan comparable to the "Two Bombs, One Satellite" project.
An important signal has emerged: China is making great efforts in a key area that could potentially "constrain its development", an area as crucial as the "Two Bombs, One Satellite" project.
Controlled nuclear fusion is a battlefield that truly concerns the nation's fortune.
According to data from the fusion industry tracking institution Fusin Energy Base, due to the "rapid rise" of Chinese forces, the global fusion equity investment in 2024 reached nearly $3 billion, setting a new historical high.
Among them, the investment growth rate in China is extremely remarkable:
As can be seen from the figure, the global fusion equity financing once reached a peak in 2021, when the investment from the United States dominated absolutely. But since then, both the total amount and share of US investment have declined, and China has begun to catch up.
In just three years, China's equity investment in controlled nuclear fusion has experienced an explosive growth, almost "from nothing to something", and has quickly surpassed the United States at one point.
It should be noted that although controlled nuclear fusion is hailed as the "ultimate solution to the energy problem", the difficulty is also at the "Mount Everest" level. There was a saying in the scientific community: Controlled nuclear fusion is always 50 years away from full realization.
Even more surprisingly, in February this year, Helion Energy, a "unicorn" in the US nuclear fusion field, received a financing of $425 million. The list of investors not only includes Lightspeed Venture Partners, SoftBank of Japan, etc., but even Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI.
Why has the investment in the nuclear fusion field in China and the United States both seen a significant increase, attracting the attention of the most cutting - edge technology tycoons?
Will controlled nuclear fusion suddenly become a reality?
01
The first important signal we have captured is that China's attention to controlled nuclear fusion has been unprecedentedly enhanced.
On December 29, 2024, 25 central state - owned enterprises, scientific research institutions, universities and other units announced the establishment of the Controlled Nuclear Fusion Innovation Consortium in Chengdu. At the meeting, it was mentioned that:
As an ideal solution to the human energy problem, controlled nuclear fusion has become the frontier of scientific and technological competition among major powers.
We must earnestly enhance the sense of urgency, responsibility and mission for cultivating and developing future industries.
It can be seen that China has elevated the research and development of controlled nuclear fusion technology to the strategic height of major - power competition and the cultivation of future industries, striving to catch up as soon as possible.
According to data from the Japanese research company Astamuse, after 2015, the number of important patents applied for by China in the nuclear fusion field increased significantly, exceeding that of the United States.
Some institutions have even made predictions:
Both China and the United States may push nuclear fusion power generation into the application stage around 2028.
The most direct reason for the significant increase in nuclear - fusion - related investment in China in the past two years is the frequent actions of central state - owned enterprises entering the field. On June 17, Zhongyou Capital, a subsidiary of China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC), issued an announcement stating that the company plans to jointly increase the capital of Kunlun Capital, its industrial investment platform, by 3.275 billion yuan with CNPC and PetroChina for investing in controlled nuclear fusion projects.
According to Pengpai News, CNPC's capital increase of Kunlun Capital this time is to invest in China Fusion Energy Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as China Fusion Company) and become the second - largest shareholder of this company after China National Nuclear Corporation.
Public information shows that China Fusion Company was established simultaneously with the aforementioned Controlled Nuclear Fusion Innovation Consortium, and its meaning is quite clear:
As the "national team" in the industry, it shoulders the mission of promoting the industrialization of nuclear fusion.
Many local state - owned assets and even private enterprises are also flocking to enter the field. For example, Fusion New Energy, known as the "unicorn" of nuclear fusion in Hefei, has shareholders including Kunlun Capital, Hefei state - owned assets, Hefei Science Island under the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and Weiju Technology under NIO.
And for the nuclear fusion startup Energy Singularity in Shanghai, in addition to NIO Capital, Sequoia China Seed Fund, and BlueRun Ventures, even the game company Mihoyo is among the investors.
With a huge amount of capital flowing in, the situation is surging.
02
Compared with China, on the other side of the Pacific Ocean in the US investment community, Internet companies have also been active.
In October 2024, Zap Energy, a US nuclear fusion energy startup, received an investment from Japan's Mizuho Financial Group. Among the investors of Zap Energy is the Breakthrough Energy Ventures founded by Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft.
In February this year, Helion Energy, another "unicorn" in the US nuclear fusion field, received a financing of $425 million. The investors include Sam Altman, the founder of OpenAI.
Both old and new money are vying to invest, and the core concern is only one: energy.
Today's artificial intelligence is a terrifying "power - guzzling monster".
According to a report from the International Energy Agency, the total power consumption of global data centers in 2022 was about 460 terawatt - hours, accounting for about 2% of the global electricity consumption. By 2026, this figure will exceed 1000 terawatt - hours, approximately equal to the total electricity consumption of Japan in 2022.
Controlled nuclear fusion is exactly a possible "ultimate answer" to the energy problem.
Imagine: What would a world be like where energy is dozens or hundreds of times more abundant than it is now?
In Liu Cixin's science - fiction novel The Three - Body Problem, a scene of "wireless power transmission" in the future society was depicted: All devices, whether flying in the sky, held in the hand, or swimming in the water, are powered wirelessly from a distance.
If controlled nuclear fusion is achieved, this "luxurious" power - supply method is entirely possible. The changes it will bring to humanity will definitely be subversive, perhaps far exceeding the first three technological revolutions.
It should be noted that the raw materials for nuclear fusion are the hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium, which are widely present in the oceans that cover 70% of the Earth's surface, almost inexhaustible.
Moreover, theoretically, the heat generated by 1 gram of nuclear fusion fuel is equivalent to that generated by about 8 tons of oil, four times the heat generated by nuclear fission reactions in current nuclear power plants. Once controlled nuclear fusion is mastered, the scale of energy available to humans only depends on the number of nuclear fusion reactors. With almost infinite energy, infinite possibilities are opened up:
For example, seawater can be distilled on a large scale to completely solve the water shortage problem, and even artificial climates can be created to turn deserts and gobi into oases;
Furthermore, any required substances can be produced through particle colliders, and precious metals such as gold will no longer be rare;
Even interstellar migration through spaceships driven by fusion reactions...
Some scientists have proposed the idea that a spacecraft equipped with an inertial confinement fusion engine can reach 1% - 10% of the speed of light, allowing us to reach Proxima Centauri within 40 - 100 years.
Will future human civilization be permanently trapped on Earth or truly move towards the stars?
This may depend on when we unlock the technology tree of controlled nuclear fusion.
03
Currently, the technological breakthrough of controlled nuclear fusion has reached a delicate moment.
As early as the 1950s, the Soviet Union designed the first - generation nuclear fusion experimental device (Tokamak device). It has been 70 years since then. Meanwhile, the computer, which was born around the same time, has evolved from the size of a house to something that can fit in a pocket. However, there has been no "qualitative" breakthrough in nuclear fusion technology.
This is because controlled nuclear fusion faces two insurmountable "mountains".
One is that the conditions for achieving controlled nuclear fusion are very difficult. For example, controlled nuclear fusion is like creating a small sun and then confining it in some way.
This requires a minimum temperature of about 50 million to 100 million degrees Celsius. The hafnium alloy, the material with the highest melting point that humans can currently produce, has a melting point of only 4215 degrees Celsius. Any material that comes into contact with the plasma generated by nuclear fusion will be instantly melted.
Currently, the mainstream international technological route is magnetic confinement fusion, which uses a powerful magnetic field to "contain the fireball" and allows the plasma to continuously "burn" in a stable space. The most widely used device is the Tokamak, and more than 100 such devices have been built and are in operation globally.
The largest Tokamak device under construction in the world is the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), which was jointly initiated by major powers such as the European Union, China, South Korea, the Soviet Union, Japan, India, and the United States in 1985. It was originally scheduled to be completed this year, but the construction period has been postponed again and again, and the commissioning time has been adjusted to 2034.
Partial view of EAST (Source: Guangming Daily)
Currently, in the field of magnetic confinement, China's technological accumulation is at the forefront. In January this year, the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) of the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences once again broke the world record, achieving 1000 seconds of high - quality burning at 100 million degrees Celsius for the first time.
However, this is not enough. There is a second problem with controlled nuclear fusion: achieving a positive energy gain.
People use the Q - value to refer to the ratio of the energy released by the fusion reaction to the energy input to initiate and maintain the fusion reaction. For commercial applications, the Q - value needs to reach at least 10.
How high can we achieve now? The highest Q - value record of all Tokamak devices in the world is only about 0.7, far from enough.
Even if another technological route, "inertial confinement fusion", is adopted, which uses powerful lasers or particle beams to instantly heat the fuel to initiate a fusion reaction, the highest Q - value that can be achieved is only 4.13, without considering the high - energy consumption for charging the entire device.
Internationally, the development of controlled nuclear fusion is generally divided into six stages:
Principle research - scale experiment - burning experiment - reactor engineering experiment - demonstration reactor - commercial reactor
Currently, only a few countries such as China, the United States, and the European Union can reach the burning - experiment stage, and commercialization is still a long way off.
04
However, technological breakthroughs by humans have never been linear; there is a complete possibility of rapid progress.
Capital has smelled a glimmer of opportunity and is accelerating its layout.
According to the Global Private Nuclear Fusion Industry Investment Report recently released by the European Fusion for Energy, the coordinating body of ITER in Europe, as of June 10, 2025, the cumulative investment flowing into private fusion enterprises has increased from 1.5 billion euros in 2020 to 9.9 billion euros.
This is sufficient to show that in recent years, the capital market's attention to the nuclear fusion field has increased significantly.
In fact, whoever can master the secret of nuclear fusion first will possess the power to subvert the world. Such a "game - changer" is something that all the world's technological powers dare not ignore.
Even Germany, which has been advocating "nuclear withdrawal" for the past two decades, intends to re - enter the game.
In March this year, the newly elected German coalition government proposed in its first joint statement to "strengthen nuclear fusion research with the goal of having the world's first nuclear fusion reactor". The United Kingdom, Japan, and South Korea have also put forward their own "nuclear plans".
In the 1950s, Lev Artsimovich, a Soviet nuclear physicist, once said a famous quote after developing the Tokamak device:
"When society needs nuclear fusion technology, nuclear fusion can be achieved."
Looking back at the several technological revolutions in human history, they have never been pre - planned and implemented step - by - step. After countless practices, trials and errors, and explorations, one day, a spark of inspiration will be struck, and we will instantly cross mountains and reach for the stars.
This is also a battle for national fortune. In the magnificent scientific and technological competition, China must not be absent.
References
1. Exclusive | Betting on Nuclear Fusion, Zhongyou Capital of CNPC Will Become the Second - Largest Shareholder of China Fusion Energy Company
2. Guangming Daily: When Will the "Artificial Sun" Become a Reality?
3. Huatai Securities: "Kua Fu" Chasing the "Sun", How Far Are We from Controlled Nuclear Fusion?
4. Zhigu Trends: 24 Giants Suddenly Gather, Planning to Make a Move in the Field with the Smallest Gap between China and the United States
5. Caijing Magazine: Industry Observation | The Dawn of the Ultimate Energy Appears, and Global Nuclear Fusion Competition Accelerates
This article is from the WeChat official account "Zhigu TrendsTrend", author: Wu Yibo, published by 36Kr with permission.