Powering Fusion: Inside The Supply Chain Sprint For The Next Energy Era

Read the full article here:  https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbestechcouncil/2025/10/03/powering-fusion-inside-the-supply-chain-sprint-for-the-next-energy-era/

Dr. Michael Ponting is Chief Scientific Officer at Peak Nano, a leading innovator in advanced capacitor films, specialty films, and optics.

We are on the cusp of putting fusion energy directly onto the grid. After decades of research and development, first-of-a-kind fusion systems are finally being proven.

Investment is surging, and fusion power is expected to come online in the next five to 10 years. Today, at least five companies, including Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), Helion, Type One, and Pacific Fusion, are actively developing plants. The next challenge will be to build and deploy thousands of these plants worldwide.

Fusion is expected to be a $1 trillion global industry by 2050. To harness this once-in-a-century opportunity and avoid needing to outsource technology and supply chain leadership, we must ready our supply chain to deliver (at scale and at home) the advanced technologies first-of-a-kind fusion plants will need.

A Trillion-Dollar Industry With High Geopolitical Stakes

Global electricity demand continues to climb and is expected to more than double by 2050. Fusion is poised to help us meet it, providing always-on clean energy that fits directly into today’s grid. But behind that potential lies a notable geopolitical contest that cannot be understated, where those scaling fusion first will gain massive leverage in both energy security and global influence.

Commercial fusion is nearly here, exemplified by CFS’s August 2025 funding round aimed at completing its demonstration machine, "SPARC," and the development of the first ARC power plant in Virginia. Recent breakthroughs in stable plasma production, deploying boron powder and reactor run-time extension, coupled with increased global funding and collaboration, have transformed fusion from a long-term science project into an urgent industrial pursuit. As The Fusion Report puts it, we’re on a "10-year shot clock."

FIA's annual report highlights how governments and private companies worldwide are upping spending to start fusion machine manufacturing, with over $9 billion in products and offerings currently committed. In 2024, there was a 73% spike in fusion supply chain spending, and another 25% growth is expected in 2025. Nearly 90% of suppliers have seen increased business as the sector moves toward grid-scale deployment of fusion systems.

Competing Models For Fusion Leadership

Several nations are taking different approaches to fusion development. China, for example, has emphasized large-scale, government-backed research and the rapid build-out of advanced manufacturing and supply ecosystems. The U.S., meanwhile, has leaned heavily on decentralized innovation and strong private-sector investment, which continue to drive many of the most advanced designs forward. 

Both models are shaping how fusion will scale globally. For the U.S., the challenge is ensuring that innovation leadership is matched by supply chain strength and government support, so that scientific breakthroughs translate into commercial deployment and long-term energy security.

The U.S. government committed $1.48 billion to fusion in 2024. This, coupled with the Executive Order on Nuclear Power and Reduced Regulation and the proposed STEM Education and Skilled Technical Workforce for Fusion Act, signals that federal funding is heading in the right direction.

Bringing scientific breakthroughs to real-world energy markets will require sustaining this government funding and building a robust U.S. supply chain composed of the most advanced technologies available.

Fusion’s Demand For ‘Supermaterials’

To meet commercial fusion’s tight timeline, suppliers must prepare now—because true innovation doesn't happen overnight. For example, it took CFS three years to build its record-breaking high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets to make fusion reactors smaller, faster, and more cost-effective.

Similarly, at Peak Nano, we spent over five years creating and scaling NanoPlex dielectric film technology for energy storage—speeding up new plastic film-based material development from the standard 10-year timeline down to just a few months without needing millions in research funding or major new capital for construction of material reactors.

There are a handful of FIA advanced materials suppliers creating the performance and reliability breakthroughs fusion reactors demand—such as additive manufacturing and modular architectures. Among the most critical are reliable, long-lifetime, pulsed power components for energy storage and switching.

This last category includes capacitors, which provide massive bursts of energy to ignite and sustain plasma in fusion reactors. Capacitors use a super-thin plastic film to store and release energy, typically made of biaxially oriented polypropylene (BOPP)—a plastic predominantly made in China that struggles to perform in high-temperature environments. Fusion demands better film technology and a massive scale-up in domestic production.

Upgrading our grid equipment to be fusion-ready will require widespread deployment of advanced technologies like these, engineered to support fusion’s core needs: rapid pulsed power, grid-friendly ignition cycles and reliability to reduce downtime and lifetime costs for commercial fusion machines.

The New Competitive Mandate: Robust Supply Chains

Science is no longer fusion’s biggest bottleneck. While we need continued and focused R&D for next-generation reactor designs, an unprecedented wave of time-critical engineering and supply chain activities is underway. I believe it’s more important than ever to speed up our efforts to scale fusion’s infrastructure, workforce and supply chain.

Business and technology leaders must move now by:

• Regularly adapting system architectures and technology road maps.
• Investing in agile, reliable supply chains for advanced materials that meet fusion’s demands.
• Leveraging partnerships and creating sector-wide consortia across utilities, tech innovators, suppliers, local communities and government to close gaps between lab-scale demonstrations and commercial deployment.
• Collaborating with policymakers to speed up permitting and siting for fusion projects.
• Supporting fusion workforce development.
• Tracking global fusion initiatives and adjusting strategies to stay competitive.

Fusion’s Critical Decade Ahead

We can expect fusion power to come online in the 2030s, and it's likely that the next decade will dictate our future. By working toward delivering—on time and at scale—with a stable supporting supply chain infrastructure, the U.S. can lead this energy shift. To do so, equipment suppliers, technology innovators, and policymakers must work together and act urgently.