Proxima Fusion

What they do

Proxima Fusion is designing fusion power plants based on the stellarator, a machine that confines hot plasma inside an intricately twisted magnetic field. Its approach pairs quasi-isodynamic stellarator geometry with high-temperature superconducting magnets, which allow stronger fields in a more compact device. The company's roadmap runs from magnet development to Alpha, a demonstration device, and on to Stellaris, its concept for a first commercial power plant.

Why it matters

Most private fusion money has gone into tokamaks and laser concepts. Stellarators are harder to design but, in principle, better suited to steady, continuous operation, which is what a grid operator wants. Advances in computing have made it possible to optimise their complex shapes, and Germany's Wendelstein 7-X experiment has shown that the physics works. Proxima aims to turn that scientific base into an engineering programme with industrial partners.

The plan is ambitious. According to the Max Planck Society, construction of Alpha is slated to begin in 2027, with the goal of showing net energy gain by 2031. In 2026 the company signed a memorandum of understanding with the State of Bavaria, the utility RWE and the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics on a German stellarator power plant, and partnered with Fujikura on superconducting tape manufacturing in Germany.

Products to know

• Alpha: the planned demonstration stellarator intended to reach net energy gain.
• Stellaris: a design study for a commercial power plant of roughly one gigawatt, developed with the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics.

The German angle

Proxima was founded in 2023 as a spin-out of the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Garching and Greifswald, home to decades of stellarator research and to Wendelstein 7-X. Its founders include Francesco Sciortino, Jorrit Lion and Jonathan Schilling. Headquartered in Munich, with further offices in Switzerland and England, it has become the flagship of Germany's push to translate public fusion science into a private industry, a policy goal that federal and Bavarian governments now openly support.