New Technologies in the Energy Sector
In October 2025, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) released its Fusion Science and Technology Roadmap, a national strategy to accelerate the development and commercialization of fusion energy on the most rapid, responsible timeline in history.
✅ What is Nuclear Fusion?
- Nuclear fusion is the process where two light atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier one, releasing massive amounts of energy.
- Fusion reactions occur in plasma, a hot, charged gas of ions and free electrons with properties distinct from solids, liquids, or gases.
- The Sun and all stars are powered by this reaction.
➡️ Source: What is Nuclear Fusion?
☑️ Key Takeaways:
📌 The Roadmap guides the emerging U.S. fusion private sector toward maturity, targeting actions and milestones through the mid-2030s.
📌 Build-Innovate-Grow is DOE’s new strategy to support fusion energy commercialization in the U.S. and its tool is the Roadmap.
📌 The Roadmap defines a new era of U.S. fusion energy leadership by setting ambitious goals to deliver fusion power on an aggressive timeline, accelerated by the revolutionary potential of Artificial Intelligence (AI)-Fusion convergence.
📌 The Roadmap defines Key Actions to be executed in the near-term (next 2-3 years), mid-term (3-5 years) and long-term (5-10 years), aligned to the Build-Innovate-Grow strategy. DOE will build Fusion Science & Technology infrastructure and the AI-Fusion digital convergence platform.
✅ Is this A New Era of U.S. Fusion Energy Leadership?
📌 The U.S. has led innovation in nuclear fusion since the 1940s with significant fusion research carried out during the Manhattan Project.
📌 In the 1950s, the U.S. launched Project Matterhorn under the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), an effort that later became part of the DOE fusion program.
📌 The theoretical framework for compressing and heating fusion fuel using powerful energy drivers was also established through early work in the 1960s and 1970s.
📌 Since the early 1990s, the U.S. developed some of the world’s most sophisticated multi-physics computational codes validated with world-leading diagnostic tools on world-class domestic facilities.
📌 In the 2000s, fusion technology activity began to grow modestly in the U.S. under the APEX and ALPS programs.
📌 In the 2010s the advent of high-performance computing and the understanding of burning plasma physics ushered in a predictive capability that has brought forth confidence in a path forward to the commercialization of fusion energy.
📌 Today, the U.S. hosts the fastest-growing private fusion sector, attracting $9B+ in private investment and home to 29 fusion companies, the largest globally, including three with over $1B each.