Science

Nuclear Fusion Timeline 2026: The Race to Put Fusion Power on the Grid

No commercial fusion power plant is operating anywhere in 2026, and none is connected to a grid. What changed this year is engineering, not physics: the US DOE…

Swipe to explore ›
AiTimeline Home
STELLAR ENERGY HYPOTHESIS

Eddington Proposes Stellar Fusion

British astrophysicist Arthur Eddington suggested that stars generate energy by fusing hydrogen into helium, laying the theoretical foundation for everything that follow…

AiTimeline Home
TOKAMAK BREAKTHROUGH

Soviet T-3 Tokamak Sets the Design Standard

Soviet scientists led by Lev Artsimovich reported unprecedented plasma temperatures and confinement times inside the T-3 tokamak, results independently verified by a Bri…

AiTimeline Home
ITER AGREEMENT SIGNED

Seven Partners Sign the ITER Agreement

The EU, US, Russia, China, Japan, South Korea and India sign the ITER Agreement, founding the largest international fusion research collaboration in history, with India…

AiTimeline Home
NIF IGNITION

NIF Achieves Fusion Ignition

Lawrence Livermore's National Ignition Facility delivers 2.05 megajoules of laser energy to a fuel target and measures 3.15 megajoules of fusion energy back, a real, ind…

AiTimeline Home
HELION D-T FUSION

Helion's Polaris Reports D-T Fusion

Helion reports its seventh-generation Polaris prototype became the first privately developed machine to demonstrate measurable deuterium-tritium fusion, with plasma temp…

AiTimeline Home
DOE ROADMAP + LICENSES

DOE Roadmap and Helion's Regulatory Licenses

The US Department of Energy finalises its Fusion Science & Technology Roadmap targeting a mid-2030s pilot plant. Days later, Helion becomes the first company ever to hol…

AiTimeline Home
ITER TWO-THIRDS CORE

ITER Passes Two-Thirds Tokamak Assembly

ITER lowers the sixth of nine roughly 1,100-tonne vacuum-vessel sector modules into the tokamak pit on July 28-29, putting two-thirds of the core in place about six mont…

AiTimeline Home
WORLD'S LARGEST FUSION MAGN…

China Completes BEST's Superconducting Magnet

China's Institute of Plasma Physics completes a 582-tonne superconducting magnet, described as the world's largest, for the BEST tokamak, clearing a major hurdle toward…

AiTimeline Home
ORION TARGET

Helion Targets First Fusion Electricity

Helion's Orion plant is targeting at least 50 MW of electricity for Microsoft starting in 2028, ramping to full output over roughly a year, under the world's first fusio…

AiTimeline Home
THE RACE AHEAD

BEST, ARC and ITER's Research Operations

China targets a BEST electricity-generation demonstration around 2030; Commonwealth Fusion Systems targets its roughly 400 MW ARC plant for the early 2030s; ITER's deute…

AiTimeline Home

Want the full timeline?

Read the complete story, FAQs and key facts.

AiTimeline Home