"Recent Progress and Developments in Fusion Research (Where We Are on the Path to a Magnetic Confinement Fusion Reactor)"

In the past decade there has been a marked resurgence of interest—in public discourse, private investment, and government programs—in transitioning fusion from a scientific enterprise into a practical energy technology. This momentum is driven by the increasingly visible impacts of climate change, rapid electrification and rising global energy demand. High‑profile scientific milestones have amplified awareness, drawing start‑ups and established industry into the field and prompting governments to publish roadmaps that compress timelines toward first‑of‑a‑kind reactors. Beneath the headlines, substantive technical advances are reshaping the outlook. High‑temperature superconductors are enabling access to higher magnetic fields, opening pathways to more compact devices and larger performance margins. Numerical breakthroughs in stellarator optimization now produce configurations that, for the first time, extrapolate credibly toward serviceable reactors. At the same time, progress in understanding turbulent transport—spanning reduced and first‑principles models—has yielded tools that quantitatively reproduce and predict behavior in present devices with unprecedented fidelity, setting up a predict–validate–improve cycle that accelerates reactor design and scenario development. Advances in disruption avoidance and control, power‑exhaust and divertor concepts, and improved performance regimes have also been observed. This talk will trace these developments through the lens of reactor requirements, assessing where tokamaks and stellarators stand today and what gaps remain, and will survey the emerging project landscape—from ITER’s role to public roadmaps and diverse private‑sector trajectories—concluding with pathways being pursued in Germany and their connection to global efforts.