Controllable nuclear fusion, another 500 million yuan in financing.

Recently, Henan Zhongke Qingneng Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Zhongke Qingneng") has completed nearly 500 million yuan in Pre - A++ round financing, which is the largest financing in the cryogenic track recently.

The leading investors in this round include the well - known institution Dinghui Baifu, the "national team" Guoxin Fund, Kunpeng Capital under the Shenzhen State - owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission, and NIO Capital in the industrial investment field. In addition, Hetang Venture Capital with Tsinghua University background and the old shareholder CGN Capital also participated.

This company, which has caught the eye of leading institutions with different backgrounds, is indeed special. The controlling shareholder of Zhongke Qingneng is an equity fund (Henan Egret Hydrogen Technology Equity Investment Fund Partnership), mainly funded by CGN Capital and Henan Aerospace Industry Fund. CGN Capital is an investment platform under the giant central enterprise CGN Group, while Henan Aerospace Industry Fund is supported by state - owned assets at the provincial, municipal, and district levels in Henan Province.

In 2022, the two parties, together with industrial chain partners such as the Energy Research Institute of Hefei Comprehensive National Science Center and Shanghai Ke'an Chuangneng Technology Co., Ltd., jointly initiated the establishment of Zhongke Qingneng.

It can be said that this is a project jointly incubated by the "nuclear power - affiliated" state - owned assets and Henan state - owned assets.

According to the reporter from Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily, the company's core technology system is derived from the years of accumulation of the Hefei Institute of Chinese Academy of Sciences in the field of cryogenic technology for magnetic confinement fusion. CEO Pan Weiwei once served as the director of the CGN Research Institute, and many core members have been deeply involved in major fusion projects such as EAST, CRAFT, and ITER, with rich experience in cryogenic system design, engineering delivery, and long - term operation and maintenance.

Notably, in the past six months, controllable nuclear fusion has become a hot spot for financing in the primary market. At the beginning of 2026, Star Ring Fusion announced the completion of 1 billion yuan in Series A financing, breaking the record for a single - round financing of domestic private fusion enterprises. In addition, companies such as Shuyanjuchuang, Dongsheng Fusion, and Supermagnetic New Energy have also recently completed a new round of financing.

The area that Zhongke Qingneng focuses on is closely related to the fusion industry. The company focuses on cryogenic technology below 20K (about minus 253 degrees Celsius) and mainly operates three types of equipment: hydrogen liquefaction, helium liquefaction, and cryogenic sensing systems. This is the indispensable "infrastructure" for the two current strategic tracks - controllable nuclear fusion and green hydrogen energy.

In controllable nuclear fusion devices, such as tokamak devices, using magnetic fields to confine high - temperature plasma is one of the key technologies. High - temperature plasma has extremely high energy. Without magnetic field confinement, the plasma will quickly diffuse, and the nuclear fusion reaction cannot proceed stably and continuously. Only by cooling the superconducting magnet below its critical temperature to maintain the superconducting state can the superconducting magnet stably generate a strong magnetic field.

The reporter from Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily learned from Zhongke Qingneng that it has continued the helium cryogenic refrigeration technology route of the Chinese Academy of Sciences' EAST. The 3kW@4.5K helium refrigerator delivered last year has been applied to the key core system of the CRAFT large - scale scientific device and is currently the helium refrigerator with the largest cooling power in use in the field of nuclear fusion in China.

It is reported that CRAFT ("Kuafu"), formally known as the Comprehensive Research Facility for Fusion Technology, is a large - scale scientific device prioritized in China's "13th Five - Year Plan for the Construction of National Major Scientific and Technological Infrastructures" and is currently under construction in Hefei. After completion, it will become the most advanced and fully - functional comprehensive research and testing platform in the international fusion field.

Next, Zhongke Qingneng will promote the implementation of a 20kW@4.5K helium refrigerator, which will be the world's largest single - unit helium refrigeration equipment. It is expected that the equipment will be launched and released in 2026.

Zhongke Qingneng said that it has started discussions with key customers of cryogenic key equipment in the hydrogen energy and fusion fields. As of January this year, the company has signed contracts worth over 100 million yuan.

"The nuclear fusion industry chain is very long. Currently, the investment hot spots are spreading from private fusion companies to the supply of core components and subsystems in the middle reaches." An investor who has invested in a nuclear fusion fund told the reporter from Science and Technology Innovation Board Daily, "Systems such as cryogenic systems, magnet systems, and vacuum systems are crucial for the stable operation of future fusion reactors and are also the areas most likely to achieve commercial value first. At the same time, the emergence of large - scale orders in these areas is also an important signal of maturity."

The nuclear fusion track naturally has high technical thresholds and difficulties in commercialization. Therefore, teams that can transform laboratory technology into industrial applications are scarce, he said.

In the field of hydrogen energy, Zhongke Qingneng is also making rapid industrialization progress. Its 1 - ton - per - day hydrogen liquefaction equipment successfully provided fully domestic liquid hydrogen fuel for the launch of the "Long March 8" rocket in March 2025, which is the first time in China's aerospace history that fully domestic liquid hydrogen fuel has been used.

In addition, Zhongke Qingneng's 5 - ton - per - day hydrogen liquefaction equipment has been successfully developed, launched, and contracted. The liquid hydrogen plant is expected to be put into commercial operation in September 2026, which will be China's first 5 - ton - per - day commercial liquid hydrogen plant. The 35 - ton - per - day hydrogen liquefaction equipment under research and development is expected to become the world's top - producing single - unit product, and it has already received 9 binding global orders in advance.

According to the company's plan, the nearly 500 million yuan in financing in this round will be mainly used to support several key development tasks, including the research and development of larger - scale liquid hydrogen systems and nuclear fusion refrigeration systems, the development of the third - generation quantum cryogenic sensing system, the engineering delivery of key refrigeration systems for several large - scale scientific devices in China, and the construction of the second - phase manufacturing center, systematically strengthening its technological barriers and expanding production capacity.

This article is from the WeChat official account "Venture Capital Daily", author: Yu Shiqi, published by 36Kr with authorization.