Let me first tell a story from 170 years ago. In 1854, an American businessman who was already wealthy and free decided to lay a submarine cable between the United States and Britain. At the time, people thought he was crazy: the trans-North Atlantic route was more than 4,000 kilometers long, the deepest seabed was more than 4,000 meters, and the winds and waves in the North Atlantic were unusually frequent and violent. It would take 58 years for the Titanic to set sail... With the technical level at the time, it was completely impossible to reach the sky.
But this guy named Field organized the top scientists, engineers, captains and sailors at the time, and also raised funds from the United Kingdom and the United States, and got started.
In 1857, the first attempt to lay it failed because the cable broke on the seabed.
In the second attempt in May 1858, the cable broke again. In June, there was a storm. In July, the cable was successfully connected. On August 16, the first telegraph message from Britain to the United States was successfully sent, but the signal disappeared in the vast Atlantic Ocean...
Field was nearly broke.
After six years, Field collected funds and reorganized and designed the cables despite the pressure of public opinion.
In 1865, the iron-hulled steamship "Great Eastern", the largest ship in the world at the time, set sail. On August 2, when it was 2/3 of the way, the cable broke at the stern of the ship.
At the end of June 1866, it was already the fifth attempt. The "Great Eastern" and the grapple ship set sail, miraculously hooked up the lost cable, spliced it, repaired it, and finally succeeded.
When connected, the cable transmitted eight words per minute, but that was already 80 times faster than the first attempt in 1858.
There is no longer any jet lag in the North Atlantic. This is known as "the greatest achievement of mankind since Columbus discovered the Americas", and Field has received huge commercial returns as a result.
transatlantic submarine cable
This is a story about an entrepreneur's strategic vision, determination and courage that has gone down in the annals of human history.
Today, the same lone brave man appears faintly in another more sci-fi and cutting-edge field:
Controlled nuclear fusion.
When it comes to #nuclearfusion, what everyone probably hears most is the hydrogen bomb.
However, in addition to being used on the battlefield, scientists have been studying how to achieve controllable nuclear fusion and turn nuclear fusion into a future energy source.
Controllable nuclear fusion has become a key area of competition among major powers.
If you watch the news, you must still remember the US ban some time ago: suspending the export of nuclear power equipment and related parts to China.
Why?
Fundamentally speaking, in the long history of the development of human society, energy has always been a key factor in promoting the progress of civilization.
Why the United States wants to help Israel and control the Middle East is not because the Middle East has oil.
Petroleum is one of the most important forms of energy in modern industrial society.
However, as human society develops, energy demand will become higher and higher. Musk said artificial intelligence faces three major limitations when scaling up: chips, transformers and power generation capacity. The efficiency and reserves of fossil energy sources such as petroleum gas may not be enough to meet demand.
Secondly, the raw materials for nuclear fusion can be said to be inexhaustible. Nuclear fusion uses hydrogen isotopes deuterium and tritium as fuel. Deuterium is widely found in nature, and every liter of seawater contains 30 mg of deuterium.
Third, the energy density is high. The energy produced by the fusion of 30 milligrams of deuterium is equivalent to burning 300 liters of gasoline.
Assembly of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), the world's largest international fusion facility, begins in France in 2020
Countries such as Europe, the United States, and Japan have all set their sights on controllable nuclear fusion early on.
Whoever masters this technology first and realizes commercialization means that whoever is the first to achieve "energy freedom" will be one step ahead in future national competition.
It's like creating a new sun for humanity.
China has also planned early. In addition to the national team, it is now actively encouraging social forces to participate in this competition about the future.
At the press conference of the State Council Information Office introducing the Private Economy Promotion Law on May 8, it clearly supported private enterprises’ active participation in “double” construction and “two new” work, and mentioned that the private capital shareholding ratio in some nuclear power projects has reached 20%.
You know, nuclear power used to be entirely the domain of the national team, but now it is open to private capital.
The reason lies in the vitality of private capital.
In 2017, China's All-Superconducting Tokamak Nuclear Fusion (EAST) located in Hefei, Anhui Province achieved a steady-state high-constraint operation mode for hundreds of seconds for the first time in the world, which was big news at the time.
Xinao Natural Gas Company Infrastructure Source: Xinao official website
In the same year, Hebei #Xinao Group also announced its march towards controllable nuclear fusion!
This shocked many people, because at that time Xinao was still a private enterprise mainly engaged in urban gas and with a traditional style. Do you have this strength? Is this possible (how much policy space is there for private capital to participate in nuclear power or controllable nuclear fusion)?
However, Xinao does not make decisions based on its head.
In 2018, Wang Yusuo, the head of ENN Group, met Y.K. Martin Peng, who had retired and returned to China to work as a temporary employee at the Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences. The two hit it off and worked together.
Peng Yuankai is a top Chinese scientist in the fusion community. He proposed the concept of spherical tokamak confinement while working at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) in the United States. He also served as the project leader of the National Spherical Torus Experiment (NSTX) at the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL).
Xinao also gave everything he had. It has organized a R&D team of more than 300 people, including more than 20 high-level overseas talents, more than 200 doctors and masters, and invested 4 billion yuan. It is the largest nuclear fusion commercial company with a non-national team background.
ENN "Xuanlong-50U" nuclear fusion device
Seven years have passed, and it goes without saying that it has been difficult.
On January 24, 2024, the completed "Xuanlong-50U" device achieved its first plasma discharge.
On April 16, 2025, the "Xuanlong-50U" spherical ring hydrogen and boron fusion device experiment achieved a major breakthrough: achieving high temperature and high density million amperes (megaamps) plasma current.
At present, ENN has planned to invest 6 billion to build the next-generation fusion device "Helong-2".
Industry evaluation:
This is the first time in the world that a million-amp hydrogen-boron plasma discharge has been achieved. It marks that the spherical ring hydrogen-boron fusion research led by ENN has jumped to a high-parameter operation range. It also marks that the "Xuanlong-50U" device has entered the ranks of the world's advanced spherical rings, and is a milestone for the future commercial application of hydrogen-boron fusion.
If we don’t understand several important key points, we won’t be able to perceive the incredible challenge of this matter:
First, this is the earliest controllable nuclear fusion project in China initiated entirely by private enterprises and led by private capital;
Second, this is the first domestic exploration and attempt of controllable nuclear fusion for commercial purposes;
Third, the ENN "Xuanlong-50U" project is the first nuclear fusion project in China and the third in the world to use a spherical tokamak device;
Fourth, the ENN nuclear fusion project is the only domestic project betting on the hydrogen-boron route rather than the mainstream deuterium-tritium (D-T) fuel route.
Fifth, the world has not yet achieved even deuterium-tritium fusion power generation, and the best experimental results are still in the last century.
However, Peng Yuankai said that ENN is determined to run a spherical cyclic hydrogen boron power generation project demonstration in 2035, and this goal remains unchanged.
This is not to imitate Prometheus in stealing fire, but to imitate God in creating another sun!
Xinao changed tracks because of Wang Yusuo's sense of crisis.
In his eyes, ENN does not have any core resources or technology, and the longest franchise period surrounding city gas is only 30 years.
In terms of diversification, he has tried "coal-to-gas", introduced amorphous silicon thin-film solar energy, and also dabbled in digitalization, real estate, cultural tourism and health care, with less success and more failure.
Wang Yusuo, Chairman of the Board of Directors of ENN Group
In the end, he returned to his hometown of energy.
The dizzying wind outlet stopped chasing him, and he turned around and jumped into the bottomless pit.
Some people laughed and said that even Musk didn’t invest in nuclear fusion, and Lao Wang was afraid he was crazy.
How difficult is controllable nuclear fusion?
This futuristic-sounding word has its core principle derived from the most common way of generating energy in the universe—nuclear fusion reactions inside stars.
Schematic diagram of nuclear fission and nuclear fusion processes
The principle of atomic bombs and existing nuclear power plants is nuclear fission, which splits atomic nuclei (usually uranium, plutonium, thorium, etc.) to release energy.
Nuclear fusion works on the opposite principle, where two atomic nuclei combine to form a heavier nucleus and release energy.
Because the combustion mechanism is exactly the same as that of the sun, controllable nuclear fusion devices are often called "artificial suns."
Its energy release is about 4 times that of fission and 4 million times that of coal burning, and its advantages are even more obvious.
But controlling nuclear fusion and utilizing it is not easy.
The plasma inside the "Ancient 70" tokamak device that will start operating in June 2024. Image source: Energy Singularity Company
The first difficulty is that the fuel needs to be heated to hundreds of millions of degrees Celsius and completely ionized into a plasma state.
The second difficulty is that the plasma must be effectively confined, not in contact with the container wall, and maintained for a long enough time. In addition to gravitational constraints and inertial constraints, magnetic constraints are the mainstream of current applications, and Tokamak devices are the mainstream form.
The third difficulty is system design. Superconducting magnets, materials research and development, project implementation and cost control are all extremely difficult obstacles to overcome. There are also vacuum systems, heating systems, diagnostic systems, etc., which are the pinnacle of human physics.
The hydrogen-boron fuel route chosen by ENN is an order of magnitude more difficult than the mainstream deuterium-tritium (D-T) fuel route.
Although there are abundant sources of deuterium on the earth, tritium is very rare and expensive, and it is a nationally controlled material. The deuterium-tritium reaction produces high-energy neutron radiation, which is also very destructive to materials.
The hydrogen-boron fusion route has no neutrons, low cost, abundant fuel, and brighter commercialization prospects, but it requires high-temperature environmental conditions of 3 billion degrees, which is 200 times the core temperature of the sun. No one has ever achieved it.
The long journey of thousands of miles is only the first step.
Key threshold from discharge to nuclear fusion (summarized by DeepSeek)
The fully superconducting tokamak nuclear fusion experimental device (EAST) photographed on January 15
ENN is not the only Chinese company entering the field of controlled nuclear fusion.
The Institute of Plasma Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (Hefei) and the Southwest Institute of Physics of the Nuclear Industry (Chengdu, affiliated to CNNC) are national teams representing the highest level in China and have made rapid progress in recent years.
In 2006, Hefei Institute built the world's first non-circular cross-section fully superconducting tokamak nuclear fusion experimental device "EAST" (also known as "Eastern Super Ring"). Since then, it has been in the news from time to time for its breakthrough results.
On January 20, 2025, the "Oriental Hyperloop" set a new world record and completed "high-quality combustion" at 100 million degrees Celsius for 1,000 seconds for the first time.
The Southwest Nuclear Industry is not to be outdone. In May this year, its "China Gyre 3" device set a new record for the operation of my country's fusion devices, achieving one million amperes and one hundred million degrees H mode.
The Right Answer Last year's article "Why the World's Largest "Artificial Sun" Can Only Be Installed by China" also introduced in detail how China has grown from a fringe participant in the nuclear fusion industry to an indispensable leader. (Click on the title to read)
But Peter Drucker once said: Only by turning the solution of social problems into profitable opportunities can social problems be truly solved.
Climb towards the goal of commercialization and begin to accelerate.
In 2023, Hefei Plasma Institute will begin to promote the construction of the compact fusion energy experimental device BEST based on EAST. The latter adopted a market-oriented model for construction and operation, and a company called "Fusion New Energy" came into being. Anhui Provincial State-owned Assets, Hefei City State-owned Assets, NIO Capital and the employee stock ownership platform jointly raised 5 billion in initial capital.
In addition to state-owned assets, since 2021, industrial capitals such as MiHoYo and NIO Capital, and PE/VC institutions such as Zhongke Star, Shunwei Capital, and Yuanhe Origin, have also invested funds in startups such as Shanghai's Energy Singularity, Shaanxi's Xinghuan Energy, and Shanghai's Yixi Technology to seize this technological commanding heights.
Situation of domestic commercial controllable nuclear fusion technology research and development enterprises. Source: "New Fortune Magazine"
Among them, in June last year, the tokamak device "Honghuang 70" independently developed and built by Energy Singularity successfully achieved plasma discharge and became the world's first fully high-temperature superconducting tokamak commercial project completed and operational.
According to data from the Fusion Industry Association (FIA), over the past five years, global start-up commercial fusion companies have attracted a cumulative investment of approximately US$6.5 billion, and there have been two obvious changes.
One is the increase in private capital. As early as 2016, a group of billionaires including Bill Gates, Bezos (founder of Amazon), Branson (founder of Virgin Group), Zuckerberg and Jack Ma jointly founded a venture capital fund called Breakthrough Energy (BEV, Breakthrough Energy Ventures) and became an important "funder" of many nuclear fusion start-up companies.
The second is the rise of China’s business community. Historically, the United States has always been the leader in commercial equity investment in fusion projects, accounting for about 70%. However, in the past three years, China has made great progress. The national team, industry, local guidance funds, and entrepreneurial groups have formed a joint force and pressed the "fast forward button."
Compared with government-led scientific research projects, private enterprises are more flexible, make decisions faster, and often have more radical commercialization goals, which may allow surprising results to appear earlier.
In the opening story, Field finally completes the laying of the transatlantic cable in 1866, making London the center of world telecommunications.
By the end of the 19th century, Britain, France, Germany and other countries already had telegraph lines connected to the United States, and the signals were stronger and more efficient.
Field himself, the heroic entrepreneur, almost lost all his money due to bad investments in his later years. But he took the initiative and explored the road. Not only did he leave his name in history, but the transatlantic cable he left behind also became a star that future generations are chasing after.
In Liu Cixin's "Three-Body", nuclear fusion is a key technology for earth civilization to move into the universe, providing power for spacecraft to travel at near-light speed. Without nuclear fusion technology, all science fiction works would be eclipsed.
Humanity today has just taken its first steps.
At present, the vast majority of commercial nuclear fusion projects in the world have set the target time for production between the 2030s and 1950s.
But there is still a long way to go.
Take ENN as an example, realizing plasma discharge is only equivalent to realizing ignition coil ignition when building a car. There is still a long way to go before the engine starts spinning and the car moves forward.
Acquisition of raw materials, materials science, talent reserves, business models, input-output, safety regulations...the road ahead is full of unknowns and challenges.
But having said that, when commercial forces begin to invest intensively in the transformation of any cutting-edge technology, problems and obstacles will be exposed at an accelerated pace, and at the same time, more people will see hope. Evolution will accelerate, and the "Fusion Era" will arrive sooner.
This is a great journey that requires global collaboration and continuous investment.
Some people are going out on behalf of mankind.