Nuclear Fusion Quarterly Report — Q1 2026

Q1 2026 marked a decisive acceleration in the nuclear fusion industry across both scientific performance and policy commitment. China's EAST tokamak shattered the world plasma duration record, sustaining a 70 keV plasma for 1,066… 1. Executive Summary Q1 2026 marked a decisive acceleration in the nuclear fusion industry across both scientific performance and policy commitment. China's EAST tokamak shattered the world plasma duration record, sustaining a 70 keV plasma for 1,066 seconds and signalling that engineering-grade steady-state operation is no longer a distant aspiration. In the United States, the Department of Energy disbursed $220 million in milestone-based grants to five private fusion companies, underscoring bipartisan political support for accelerating the fusion commercialisation pathway. Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) reported SPARC tokamak construction at 40% completion and on schedule for first plasma in 2027, while ITER confirmed a further delay of its first-plasma milestone to 2027 citing supply chain disruptions. Reinforcement-learning-based plasma control reached a new maturity threshold after DeepMind published an updated disruption prediction model achieving 89% accuracy at 30 milliseconds warning — a figure that meets preliminary industrial viability thresholds. Cumulatively, over $10 billion in private capital has now been committed to the fusion sector globally, with the pace of new investment showing no signs of deceleration. --- 2. Technical & Scientific Updates — Q1 2026 2.1 Plasma & Confinement Performance Q1 2026 produced two plasma performance results of historic magnitude. China's Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) at the Institute of Plasma Physics in Hefei achieved a sustained plasma temperature of 70 keV (approximately 812 million degrees Celsius) for 1,066 continuous seconds, breaking its own previous record of 403 seconds set in 2023. This achievement demonstrated that elongated high-performance plasmas can be maintained through active MHD stabilisation and real-time impurity management for periods approaching 20 minutes — a threshold considered essential for any net-energy-producing device. Meanwhile, Commonwealth Fusion Systems reported that the SPARC tokamak, being constructed at its Devens, Massachusetts facility, reached 40% construction completion. The SPARC tokamak design uses 20-tesla high-temperature superconducting (HTS) REBCO magnets and is configured to achieve Q 2 in its first operational campaign. First plasma remains targeted for late 2027. The ITER project office, however, confirmed in January 2026 that first plasma for ITER has been pushed from the previously communicated 2025-2026 window to Q3 2027, attributable to pandemic-era and post-pandemic supply chain delays in vacuum vessel and blanket module manufacturing. TAE Technologies continued steady progress on its FRC (field-reversed configuration) approach at its Norman, California facility, reporting stable operation at

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