Follow this author to personalize your feed and get instant alerts. Follow Go to your personalized feed WHY FOLLOW? Smart Alerts: Get notified about major news as it happens. Bob Mumgaard is the co-founder and CEO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), which is developing technology to commercialize fusion power. In 2026, the company secured an additional $1 billion fundraising round as progress continues on its SPARC machine, which it says will be able to use powerful magnets to confine superheated plasma and produce power.

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When the US Department of Energy announced that it would stop funding the tokamak at MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center, Dennis Whyte considered giving up on fusion research. But then he had a brainstorm--and challenged his students to bring the idea to life. This full-scale high-temperature superconducting magnet designed and built by Commonwealth Fusion Systems and MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC) has demonstrated a recordbreaking 20 tesla magnetic field. It is the strongest fusion magnet in the world. Ever since nuclear fusion was discovered in the 1930s, scientists have wondered if we could somehow replicate and harness the phenomenon behind starlight--the smashing together of hydrogen atoms to form helium and a stupendous amount of clean energy. Fusing hydrogen would yield times more energy than simply burning it. Unlike nuclear fission, which powers the world's 440 atomic reactors, hydrogen fusion produces no harmful radiation, only neutrons that are captured and added back to the reaction.