Proxima Fusion

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Partnership

Proxima Fusion signs MoU with Kyoto Fusioneering on plasma heating tech

The deal signals fusion startups are now racing to lock down supply chains years before any reactor runs.

• Proxima Fusion and Kyoto Fusioneering signed a Memorandum of Understanding in Tokyo on October 28, 2026, during German Chancellor Friedrich Merz's visit to Japan, to expand cooperation on gyrotrons for plasma heating and fusion fuel-cycle technology.
• Proxima Fusion, a Munich-based spinout of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, is building stellarator fusion plants; Kyoto Fusioneering supplies fusion engineering technology including gyrotrons and fuel-cycle systems.
• The agreement is not a firm order or construction commitment, but it extends existing work between the two companies and will feed into Germany's national Fusion Hubs program, backed by an initial €125 million.
• The same day, Proxima also signed a separate MoU with Japanese manufacturer Fujikura to study building a high-temperature superconducting tape factory in Lower Saxony, part of a planned €140 million investment by 2029.
• Proxima expects to need about 20,000 kilometres of superconducting tape for its Alpha demonstrator, planned for the early 2030s, and roughly 40,000 kilometres for each commercial Stellaris plant that follows.
• Fusion's bottleneck is shifting from physics to manufacturing, so pairing Japan's decades of fusion engineering expertise with Germany's stellarator know-how aims to pre-build an industrial supply chain before any plant is operational.