Bob Mumgaard, CEO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems, said the global race for fusion energy is accelerating and could have a lasting impact on U.S. energy leadership.
During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union competed in almost every field, including space.
On October 4, 1957, the rivalry changed dramatically when the Soviet Union launched Sputnik, the world’s first artificial satellite, officially ushering in the Space Age. Nearly 70 years later, the United States faces new technological competition. fusion energyand one CEO has warned that the US government could be headed for a new “Sputnik moment” as China accelerates.
“Fusion is at a tipping point,” Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) CEO Bob Mumgaard told FOX Business. “With foreign governments making significant investments, we are beginning to see what the future fusion industry will look like. Especially at the intersection with AI, the fusion industry will become an important industry in the world.”
“The U.S. government has been promoting fusion for many years, but it is currently not positioned to take advantage of this moment and actually lead to energy dominance,” he added.
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On October 3, President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping stand side by side during a bilateral meeting at Gimhae International Airport on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) Summit in Busan, South Korea. (Evelyn Hochstein/Reuters/Reuters)
Mumguard looks China as the main competitor of the US As the Chinese government increases investment and coordination around fusion energy.
In July, People’s Daily OnlineThe Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official newspaper reported that the Chinese government has established China Fusion Energy Corporation (CFEC), a subsidiary of China Nuclear Corporation (CNNC). According to the report, the company’s registered capital is 15 billion yuan (approximately $2.1 billion).
of International Atomic Energy Agency In October, the IAEA noted that fusion energy development had “entered a decisive new phase”, highlighting global activity in the industry. The agency cited the work of 33 countries and thousands of engineers and scientists who are collaborating to build tokamaks, donut-shaped magnetic fusion devices. The collaboration aims to demonstrate “the feasibility of nuclear fusion as a large-scale carbon-free energy source.”
Mamgaard acknowledges that it is difficult to measure the potential impact of China winning the fusion energy race because the technology is unlike anything that has existed before.
“There has never been an energy source like nuclear fusion,” Mamgaard said. He emphasized that fusion, unlike other energy sources, does not require large amounts of land or underground infrastructure, making it innovative.
“It’s hard to know exactly how this will play out, but it’s a big technological change. And I think China, like other countries with nuclear fusion, will want to use it to power their economy,” he added.
Anhui Province in eastern China is actively building the combustion plasma experimental superconducting tokamak BEST in the capital Hefei, and is expected to demonstrate the first nuclear fusion power generation in history. (Zhou Mu/Xinhua via Getty Images/Getty Images)
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Mamgaard warned that while China is moving aggressively to advance fusion development, the United States’ own infrastructure remains largely unchanged.
“If you look at China, it is estimated that in just the last few years, China has spent between $6 billion and $12 billion on fusion development, building large-scale test benches and facilities, and organizing universities, national laboratories, and private companies to resolve remaining challenges and build demonstration power plants,” he said. “And the United States hasn’t done any of those things yet. We have a fusion program like we had in the ’90s, so we need to modernize it.”
Mamgaard argues that if the United States modernizes its fusion program, it could lead to an industrial revolution.
To accelerate America’s fusion program, Mumgaard suggests the government look to past collaborations with the private sector to advance scientific progress, such as the collaboration with SpaceX and Operation Warp Speed.
“We think there [are] There are some good models here that can be applied to fusion that leverage private capital, and there’s over $10 billion of private capital in fusion companies right now, but there’s also the expertise and acceleration that the government has shown,” Mumgaard told FOX Business.
An illustration of the SPARC tokamak at the Commonwealth Fusion Systems campus in Devens, Massachusetts, Wednesday, Nov. 6, 2024. (Cassandra Cross/Bloomberg via Getty Images/Getty Images)
While warning that the U.S. fusion program remains outdated, Mumgaard said U.S. companies are already working to advance the technology.
Commonwealth Fusion Systems is building the Soonest Possible Advanced Reactor Compact (SPARC), which is designed to produce more power than it consumes, Mumgard told FOX Business from Devens, Massachusetts.
Last year, CFS announced plans to finance, build, own and operate its own grid-scale fusion power plant in Chesterfield County, Virginia.
“This is a historic moment,” Mumgaard said. 2024 statement Announce your project. “In the early 2030s, attention will turn to the Richmond region, and more specifically Chesterfield County, Virginia, as the birthplace of commercial fusion energy.”
Mumgard reiterated the early 2030s timeline in an interview with FOX Business.
For Mamgaard, the clearest sign of whether the United States has the upper hand in the fusion energy race will be tangible results, not mere rhetoric.
“The biggest indicator is, ‘Are we starting to build something?'” he says. “‘Is what we’re building turned on? Is it working?'”
Bob Mumgaard, co-founder and CEO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems, speaks at CERAWeek, an S&P global conference on Tuesday, March 11, 2025 in Houston, Texas. (F. Carter Smith/Bloomberg via Getty Images/Getty Images)
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Mamgaard said transformative technologies like nuclear fusion often seem far away until progress accelerates, pushing back against the idea that long development timelines mean breakthroughs are still far away.
Mumgard compared efforts toward fusion with past efforts. Conversations about AInoted that after years of debate, ChatGPT has suddenly become mainstream.
“Convergence is the kind of thing that feels impossible unless you’re really paying attention to progress at a granular level, and then all of a sudden it feels inevitable. And that switch can happen very quickly if you’re just looking at it cursorily,” he said.
