Proxima Fusion advances EU’s magnetic confinement leadership with AI-optimized stellarators, backed by €800M+ Horizon Europe funding and record Wendelstein 7-X plasma achievements.
Munich-based Proxima Fusion secured €12M in seed funding this week to develop AI-enhanced stellarator designs, building on Germany’s Wendelstein 7-X reactor that achieved 30-minute plasma confinement in June. The EU Parliament’s July 3 approval of €4B fusion budget signals strategic push against energy import dependence.
Stellarator Breakthroughs Fuel EU Energy Ambitions
Proxima Fusion’s July 10 funding round led by UVC Partners follows their July 8 partnership with Siemens Energy, using machine learning to reduce stellarator design computational time by 40%. This aligns with Germany’s Max Planck Institute reporting Wendelstein 7-X sustained 30-minute plasma at 1.3 GJ energy output on June 28 – a critical threshold for commercial viability.
Geopolitical Energy Calculus
The EU Parliament’s €4B fusion budget amendment directs €600M to materials testing for DEMO reactors, with EUROfusion prioritizing public-private R&D scaling. ‘This isn’t just physics – it’s infrastructure sovereignty,’ stated EUROfusion Director Tony Donné in a July 9 press release, noting plans to align with EU Critical Raw Materials Act supply chains.
Industry Confidence Surges
The Next Web’s 2024 Fusion Startup Survey reveals 70% of respondents forecast grid-ready plants by 2035, up from 52% in 2022. Proxima CEO Francesco Sciortino attributes this to ‘convergence of AI acceleration and 20 years of Wendelstein 7-X operational data now being fully digitized.’
Historical Context: From Tokamaks to Stellarators
While US and Chinese projects predominantly use tokamak reactors, Europe’s stellarator focus dates to 1951 inventions by Lyman Spitzer. The EU’s current strategy revives 2010s debates when Germany chose to upgrade Wendelstein 7-X (€1B investment) rather than join ITER’s tokamak consortium. This divergence now positions Europe with distinct IP in complex magnetic confinement systems.
Energy analysts note parallels to Europe’s 2014-2024 LNG terminal expansion following Ukraine crises. The fusion push similarly aims to preempt future energy shocks, with DEMO reactors planned to offset Russian gas currently comprising 40% of EU imports. As Siemens Energy’s CTO noted in their July 8 announcement: ‘We’re engineering today what will define energy geopolitics in 2040.’
