Nuclear fusion is still waiting for its "iPhone moment".

This article is the 09th issue of the "Energy Singularity" series, focusing on the core technological progress and commercialization logic behind the capital boom in nuclear fusion.

On April 22 local time in the United States, SpaceX issued a rare risk warning to investors in its prospectus submitted before the IPO: The vision of building a space AI data center and establishing human settlements on the moon and Mars depends on "unproven technologies" and may not achieve commercial viability.

This statement is in sharp contrast to Musk's previous optimistic remarks about the prospects of space photovoltaics, quickly triggering a chain reaction in the capital market. On the day the news was disclosed, the A-share space photovoltaic concept stocks tumbled collectively, and the Wind Space Photovoltaic Index once fell nearly 2% during the session.

A trillion-dollar narrative spurred by the world's richest man is beginning to show cracks.

However, the energy pressure brought by the expansion of AI computing power will not disappear because of this. The cooling of the space power generation narrative is actually beneficial to another path that has long been under the long - term attention of capital - controlled nuclear fusion.

Long before SpaceX's risk disclosure, technology giants had already heavily invested in the nuclear energy track.

In 2025, several significant financing events occurred one after another. For example, Commonwealth Fusion Systems completed a financing of over $863 million, attracting participation from NVIDIA, Google, Bill Gates, etc. Helion Energy also received approximately $400 million in financing in 2025. Behind it, there were continuous investments from long - term investors such as Sam Altman, and it also attracted new - round capital such as SoftBank and Lightspeed.

At the beginning of 2026, Meta signed three large - scale nuclear power agreements in a short period, with a total scale of approximately 6.6 gigawatts, becoming one of the most aggressive nuclear energy buyers among global enterprises. What it locked in is the mature and available nuclear fission power.

Capital is pouring in at an accelerated pace, especially in the fusion field, and the enthusiasm is constantly rising.

In this wave of enthusiasm, both rational judgment and emotional drive exist. On one hand, there is a real energy demand for nuclear fusion technology in the future, and on the other hand, investors' "FOMO" (fear of missing out) sentiment persists.

An investor who has long been concerned about hard technology said, "Although there is still a long way to go to achieve nuclear fusion, if we don't make early arrangements, we may miss the most crucial energy transformation opportunity in the next - generation technological revolution."

In the current competition arena, the most intense competition is between China and the United States. A report released by the European Fusion Energy Organization Fusion for Energy (F4E) in November 2025 pointed out that the global private nuclear fusion financing in 2025 reached 13 billion euros (an eight - fold increase compared to 2020), with the United States accounting for 53% ranking first, and China ranking second with 34%. The industry is accelerating commercialization and entering the stage of capital competition.

According to statistics from China Energy News in February 2026, since 2015, nearly 20 fusion energy innovation companies have been established in China, 80% of which are private enterprises. Among these enterprises, at least 10 have received financing, and the total public financing amount exceeds 20 billion yuan.

China's accelerated layout has also made the United States clearly feel the pressure. Even the US Fox News Network said that as China increases its investment in nuclear fusion research, the United States may be facing another "Sputnik moment" in this field.

However, behind the industrial competition, nuclear fusion is not as simple as a competition dominated by only China and the United States.

Nuclear fusion is a systematic project spanning decades, involving multiple highly specialized fields. It is difficult for any single country to take the lead in all key links simultaneously.

Liu Minsheng, the chairman of the Technology Committee of ENN Group and the dean of the ENN Energy Research Institute, pointed out that in terms of key technical indicators, the world's most advanced achievements are scattered among different countries and institutions. For example, breakthroughs in core parameters such as temperature and confinement time have been achieved by multiple parties including Japan, Europe, China, and the United States. Currently, the industry is closer to a pattern of "parallel progress by multiple parties" rather than a simple situation of "who leads and who lags behind".

Under this wave of enthusiasm, the outside world often pays more attention to the financing scale, corporate cooperation lists, and timetables. However, the complexity of the nuclear fusion system project and industry understanding are the most important.

From the perspective of technical paths, current nuclear fusion mainly includes different routes such as magnetic confinement (tokamak, stellarator, field - reversed configuration), inertial confinement, and magneto - inertial confinement. These paths are relatively closer to engineering implementation, but still face challenges in terms of fuel cost and continuous operation. On this basis, some enterprises are also trying different directions.

Take ENN Group as an example. It has chosen the proton - boron (p - B¹¹) fusion, a neutron - free route. Compared with mainstream technologies, this route is cleaner, has higher safety, and is expected to reduce material loss and post - treatment costs. In December 2025, ENN Technology's "Xuanlong - 50U" device achieved the world's first high - confinement mode discharge of proton - boron plasma and obtained high - parameter operation with an ion temperature of 40 million degrees, making phased progress.

However, this type of technical route places higher requirements on plasma temperature and control ability, and the implementation difficulty has also increased significantly. Currently, it is still in the early exploration stage.

Liu Minsheng said, "In fact, at present, there has not been a real leap in the overall system level of nuclear fusion. Although each key link is continuously advancing, a decisive integrated breakthrough has not been achieved."

Under the heat, where exactly has the real progress of nuclear fusion reached? Behind the ever - refreshing financing figures and parameter records in the industry's upsurge, how should we judge the real strength of a company?

The following is a summary of the exchange with Liu Minsheng, the chairman of the Technology Committee of ENN Group and the dean of the ENN Energy Research Institute:

01 Nuclear fusion is a multi - country progress, not a single - country dominance

Q: For many years in the past, nuclear fusion was mostly regarded as a scientific problem. In recent years, with more and more enterprises and capital entering, it is moving towards industrialization. From your perspective, what stage of development is nuclear fusion currently in?

Liu Minsheng: Judging from the current development situation, it is neither as optimistic as the outside world thinks nor as pessimistic as in the past.

On the pessimistic side, there has not been a real leap at the overall system level. Currently, the breakthroughs involved in nuclear fusion cannot be solved by a "single - point breakthrough". It is not like the research on a certain part, a certain device, or even a certain set of design software, where you can move forward as long as you overcome one point. A breakthrough in one point cannot solve the problems of the entire large system.

The current situation of nuclear fusion is actually very similar to the localization of integrated circuits in previous years - we are making progress in many aspects, and we can indeed see a lot of achievements, but we have not made substantial and systematic major breakthroughs in the entire industrial chain.

On the optimistic side, each aspect is continuously making breakthroughs, and only when all these aspects are connected can a complete system be finally formed.

Q: Musk once proposed to obtain energy through methods such as space photovoltaics and even publicly downgraded the prospects of controlled nuclear fusion. The core reason is that he believes the efficiency of ground - based energy paths is not high. What do you think of his evaluation?

Liu Minsheng: From the law of technological development, different paths are more like different solutions in the same system, each with its own applicable scenarios, and they are not simply in a substitution relationship. The same is true for wind power and photovoltaics. Therefore, as a new path, space photovoltaics itself is not a problem.

However, this path also faces a series of thresholds. There are both technological challenges and commercial constraints. The key lies in whether the cost, efficiency, and deployment rhythm can match when it comes to implementation, especially whether the demand side can support such a supply system. This is a real risk point.

Q: The outside world often compares the development of nuclear fusion to an industrial competition between China and the United States. For example, companies like Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Helion in the United States can easily obtain billions of dollars in financing. In China, the number of financings and start - up companies in the fusion track has also been rising rapidly in the past two years. Even foreign media are worried that China will soon surpass the United States in this track. From the perspective of industrialization and technical routes, what do you think are the key differences between China and the United States?

Liu Minsheng: Frankly speaking, the premise of the "China - US competition" is not very tenable. Many of the nuclear fusion news we see every day are about "how much financing a certain company has received and the increase in the number of start - up companies", but these neither indicate whether there have been real breakthroughs in the technical direction nor can they be used as a basis for judging the differences between the Chinese and American routes.

If we really want to compare, we have to look at the hard parameters. There are only a few core indicators for a fusion device: high temperature, high density, and long confinement time.

In terms of key indicators, the world's most advanced achievements are scattered among different countries and devices. For example, high - temperature plasma has been achieved in devices in Japan, and long - term confinement has been continuously refreshed by devices in Europe and China. Overall, it presents a pattern of multi - point breakthroughs.

The nuclear fusion industry is currently more like a multi - polar parallel pattern rather than a "duel between two giants" competition.

Q: Now the publicity of nuclear fusion companies in the market is getting more and more popular, with a lot of information about financing amounts, milestones, and partner lists. For the outside world, how can we judge the real position of a company in the international echelon through this information?

Liu Minsheng: To evaluate a company's position, we need to ask three questions: What problems need to be solved for the core breakthrough in this field? Which of these breakthroughs have you made? How much contribution have you made in them? The evaluation criteria for core breakthroughs are different in different technical directions, and we cannot use a general "participation degree" to replace them.

For example, if a company wins an order from a foreign supplier and occupies a certain share in the domestic market, this is a commendable business achievement. But it only proves that the company has market competitiveness, not its contribution to the core technology of fusion.

Q: Compared with the early stage, how do you view the overall changes in the supporting capacity and ecological environment of the domestic nuclear fusion industrial chain?

Liu Minsheng: Overall, we are in a relatively good development stage this time. The current domestic industrial supporting capacity is completely different from what it was when we started in 2017. Around 2017 and 2018, the basic supporting capacity in China was basically in place. Since then, these capabilities have been continuously improving, and now they have entered a relatively mature stage.

In the early stage, it was more about "being able to do it but not being strong enough", and we needed to invest a lot of energy in customized cooperation to gradually improve our capabilities. Now, many links can be directly supported by the supply chain independently, and we no longer need to drive it in reverse.

More importantly, the way enterprises participate is also changing. In the past, it was more about passive supporting. Now, more and more enterprises are willing to actively invest in R & D around application scenarios such as fusion, which has transformed the entire ecosystem from "following and supporting" to co - evolution. So overall, it feels like we are gradually moving from "having capabilities but being scattered" to "having mature capabilities and enhanced collaboration", and the foundation of the industrial ecosystem is significantly more solid. All these are thanks to the favorable policies introduced by the state in recent years.

02 The so - called "new routes" of nuclear fusion are actually not new

Q: Currently, the technical routes of nuclear fusion are relatively scattered. Are they still advancing within the existing framework? Has there been a truly new direction?

Liu Minsheng: Strictly speaking, there is no truly disruptive innovation in the current technical routes.

Take the tokamak as an example. Both China and the United States are currently working on it, but who first proposed it? It was the former Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s. Since then, has there been a new framework - level breakthrough? Actually, no.

Q: Can we understand it in this way - that the current fusion is still in the stage of engineering promotion, and it is not yet the time for a new research paradigm to emerge?

Liu Minsheng: Here, we need to clearly define the meaning of "engineering promotion". It means reaching 1 and then gradually moving towards 1.5 or 2. If others achieved 1 twenty years ago and you are still at the same level and repeating, this is not "engineering promotion".

Take ENN Technology as an example. For a long time in the past, we were not very willing to speak out to the outside world. The reason is very simple: the ultimate goal of the industry is at the top, the world's highest level is in the middle, and our parameters were not ideal in the early stage of development. In this situation, promoting that "we will achieve a high level in the future" is essentially misleading the public.

Even today, we will not easily claim that "adhering to a certain technical route will definitely work". Only when we achieve the existing parameters at the world's highest level will we be qualified to talk about challenging the next goal.

The same principle applies to the engineering level. The investment in a complete fusion device can easily reach billions or tens of billions. What level has it actually reached in engineering must be measured by hard indicators. If there are no substantial breakthroughs in the three key links of core equipment, core devices, and core materials, the so - called "engineering promotion" is out of the question.

Q: There are many claims of "breakthroughs" in the market now. How should practitioners and investors judge whether a nuclear fusion technology has a real breakthrough significance?

Liu Minsheng: This is actually the same logic as when judging a result in the AI field. Whenever a breakthrough result comes out, we should ask two things: First, in terms of principle and theory, why can you do better than others? Second, what is the evolution direction of the next generation after this is done? If you can clarify the new method and the logic makes sense, then it is worth investing in.

03 The threshold for nuclear fusion commercialization: not ignition, but cost structure

Q: ENN has chosen "proton - boron (p - B¹¹) fusion" as one of the core routes, which is different from the mainstream deuterium - tritium route. What are the core considerations behind this? Is it regarded as the long - term optimal solution for industrialization, or is it to avoid the competition of the deuterium - tritium route?

Liu Minsheng: Many people in our team have an energy - related professional background and have done a large number of energy projects, so we have a basic judgment: technology does not depend on subjective will - it is not that if you think it can be commercialized, it will be commercialized.

For us, the logic is actually very simple: before doing nuclear fusion, we need to clearly define the application scenario first. Are you going to build one power plant or ten thousand power plants in the future? If you only build one power plant, many problems do not exist. But once the goal is ten thousand power plants, the situation is completely different. Different scenarios lead to completely different route choices.

Q: However, the difficulty of proton - boron fusion itself is actually higher, and the requirements for physical conditions are much more demanding. How should we consider the technical difficulty and even the implementation risk in route selection?

Liu Minsheng: All technical directions need breakthroughs. There must also be technical risks in the route we have chosen.

Our logic is as follows: If a route can be technically successful but the cost can never be reduced, it has no meaning for industrialization. On the contrary, as long as the business logic is established, the technical implementation can be gradually promoted step by step.

The starting point of our focus is: What will be the future commercial application scenario? What is the real commercial demand? Then, based on this demand, we choose the matching technical route.

Q: What are the differences in the cost structure between the "neutron - free (or low - neutron)" proton - boron route and traditional deuterium - tritium fusion?

Liu Minsheng: There are mainly four aspects:

First, the radioactive compliance cost is lower. The proton - boron route does not produce high - energy neutrons, so many compliance burdens can be reduced at the source.