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Like the new generation of space launch companies, many of the private developers of commercial fusion power owe their existence to taxpayer-funded backing and work spinning out of universities, many of which have ties to national laboratories. Fusion power technology companies are also attracting funding from deep-pocketed investors and venture capital firms.

The following list of companies, while not exhaustive, illustrates the myriad approaches to achieving fusion power under development in the private sector:

Commonwealth Fusion Systems of Cambridge, Massachusetts, is working with MIT on its SPARC fusion demonstration reactor designed on the tokamak concept. The team's approach is to use a new high-temperature superconducting magnet to contain and sustain the fusion process, enabling smaller and more practical commercial power plants.

Tokamak Energy of the U.K. is, not surprisingly, pursuing magnetic plasma containment. The company is also using high-temperature superconducting magnets with the goal of producing a spherical plasma field, which its research suggests is more efficient than torus-shaped tokamaks.

CTFusion has partnered with the University of Washington to develop a reactor design that produces fusion from deuterium and tritium fuel through a containment produced from coiled magnets. Plasma is injected continuously into the reactor, where the coils induce it to form a shape that can achieve fusion. The company says the design will enable smaller fusion reactors.

Helion Energy of Everett, Washington, is developing a fusion process from a fuel of deuterium and helium-3, a rare isotope of helium that the company produces through a patented process. Helion's reactor design has two chambers in a dumbbell configuration, in which fuel is heated to plasma and then accelerated into a central chamber where the collision results in fusion. In November the company announced it had received $500 million in funding from a group of investors led by OpenAI, with $1.7 billion in additional funding promised if certain milestones are met.

California-based TAE Technologies has a reactor design that also generates fusion from plasmas created from wing chambers that are propelled to collide in a central chamber. The design uses boron for fuel and employs particle accelerators to stabilize and prolong the fusion reaction. The company says it has raised over $880 million from an array of investors.

General Fusion seeks to eliminate magnets from the fusion process with a reactor design that injects deuterium-tritium-fueled plasma into a spherical chamber lined with a rotating wall of liquid metal. Steam-driven pistons compress the tokamak to achieve fusion. Heat is collected from the liquid wall to run turbines. Jeff Bezos is among the company's investors.

HyperJet Fusion of Chantilly, Virginia, is developing a reactor that creates fusion in a central chamber from an array of plasma guns fueled by tritium and lithium. The company was born from research sponsored by NASA, the U.S. Department of Energy and the Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy.

Zap Energy of Seattle, Washington, is seeking to develop a fusion reactor using a variation of the Z-pinch process that uses electric current to confine and manage streams of plasma. The process was born out of Department of Energy-funded research from the University of Washington and Lawrence Livermore. In August 2020, Chevron announced it was investing in the company.

LLPFusion of Middlesex, New Jersey, is also following the Z-pinch path to develop a fusion generator. The company's design directs plasma streams fueled by hydrogen and boron into a vacuum chamber by means of a pair of electrodes. The process produces a beam of helium ions that are decelerated to produce electricity through direct conversion rather than by heating a medium.

Australia-based HB11 Energy proposes achieving fusion without heating plasma by using a laser to initiate a reaction in a hydrogen-boron fuel target that is contained in a magnetic field produced by a second laser. The reaction creates charged helium nuclei that are captured by a surrounding metal sphere. Electricity is produced by direct conversion.

Essentially all these companies say they are on track to produce practical fusion first with their unique approach. Moreover, national labs and research facilities in the fusion field increasingly are willing to partner with private industry or launch startups to commercialize fusion energy. While it is impossible to predict which firm or team (if any) will be the breakout performer, the fact that many are attracting significant venture capital suggests that fusion power can no longer be dismissed as part of a far-future civilization.

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