9 minute read | June.26.2026
U.S. efforts to commercialize fusion energy are continuing full speed ahead. On June 9, 2026, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) released its finalized Fusion Science & Technology Roadmap, which lays out a national strategy to rapidly commercialize fusion power production. The Roadmap outlines a public-private development and innovation strategy with the goal of bringing fusion power to the grid by the mid-2030s. Fusion energy—the same process that lights the sun and stars—has long promised transformative affordability and environmental benefits for the nation’s and world’s energy future. This updated Roadmap seeks to reduce remaining hurdles to fusion commercialization, enabling industry leaders to unlock fusion’s enormous potential.
The Roadmap, an update to an earlier version released in October 2025, continues to utilize the three-pronged “Build-Innovate-Grow” approach for the national fusion strategy. These three components include:
Through this Roadmap, DOE outlines ways public and private actors can collaborate to accelerate fusion development and commercialization—and ultimately catalyze widespread deployment of this critical technology.
DOE, through its network of national laboratories, Office of Fusion and Fusion Energy Sciences program, has long led efforts to advance fusion science. The agency has had major successes: in 2022, it was the first to demonstrate fusion ignition—in which a system produces more output than input energy. While DOE efforts are shifting, as seen by the November 2025 announcement of the establishment of a dedicated Office of Fusion, DOE’s efforts have traditionally focused on the fundamental physics of fusion rather than the applied engineering and commercialization work needed to build power plants themselves.
Private sector fusion efforts have largely filled that gap over the last decade, and startups pioneering commercial fusion development have raised over $10 billion as of early 2026, according to ARPA-E. Several companies, such as Pacific Fusion, have made substantial investments in research and manufacturing. Some developers, including Helion Energy and Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), have even lined up commercial projects after their pilot projects: Helion announced the first fusion Power Purchase Agreement with Microsoft for a 50 MW fusion plant and recently became the first fusion company to receive regulatory licenses for a commercial fusion power plant. On the opposite coast, CFS has made recent progress towards its first commercial facility in Chesterfield, Virginia.
In the last few years, fusion energy stakeholders have urged both sides to bridge the gaps between these worlds with the goal of creating a full fusion ecosystem. Public-private partnerships like Milestone-Based Program and Innovation Network for Fusion Energy have seen DOE provide public research expertise and funding to private firms. DOE has also asked independent bodies of experts to produce advisory reports identifying additional ways the agency and industry could collaborate to realize fusion commercialization, resulting in the Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee’s Long-Range Plan (2020) and the National Academies’ Bringing Fusion to the U.S. Grid (2021). The Roadmap looks to build on this progress to utilize and bolster these existing resources, while also creating new tools to advance fusion towards commercialization.
Below we outline the Roadmap—and identify its key actions necessary to not only build fusion facilities near term, but realize the full potential of fusion commercialization.
The Roadmap “translates high-level priorities” involved with commercializing fusion into a “coordinated set of actions and milestones.”
With the input of over 800 scientists and engineers from companies, national laboratories and universities, DOE identified ten key actions to implement the Build-Innovate-Grow strategy:
The Roadmap includes six core challenge areas that identify gaps and technical milestones that are priorities of the U.S. fusion community. It also provides a detailed timeline on the infrastructure capabilities and the scientific metrics and key milestones needed to close the gaps identified across the challenge areas.
The core challenge areas include:
Across these core challenge areas, the Roadmap identifies several goals within each area that should be prioritized, and organizes timelines for each, binning the goals into near term (2-3 years), mid term (3-5 years), and long term (5-10 years). It also outlines an Infrastructure Pathway to detail how the infrastructure for fusion will be developed, what mechanisms will be employed, how they align with private industry timelines, and pathways across different infrastructure streams.
The finalized Roadmap marks a significant step forward for fusion commercialization strategy. DOE identifies specific mechanisms—for both public and private actors—that will prove useful in closing gaps during specified timeframes to make commercialization a reality.
A few challenges remain. Wider federal coordination may be one—while the Roadmap indicates that DOE is focused on the right areas, issues, and solutions, DOE suggests it may need additional appropriations in the near and long-term future to realize some of the goals and actions, including DOE-backed pilot and demonstration programs dedicated to fusion. Additional regulatory certainty is also critical—and the NRC is already on the road there, issuing its proposed rule “Regulatory Framework for Fusion Machines” in February 2026.
Ultimately, the finalized Roadmap shows that the U.S. government and the fusion industry are moving in the right direction, increasing efforts and action to commercialize fusion energy.