Proxima Fusion details €140 million German superconducting-tape plant tied to its Japanese supply deals
From the Energy digest for Nov 7, 2026
Sources CNBC Traders Union
What happened: Proxima Fusion, the Munich stellarator developer, is studying a €140 million (about $160 million) plant in Lower Saxony, Germany to manufacture high-temperature superconducting tape — the specialized metallic tape wound into the magnets that confine fusion plasma — aiming for about 5,000 kilometres (3,100 miles) a year by 2030, financed partly by the $468 million July funding round that valued the company at $2.7 billion, with Google among its backers.
What's genuinely new: CNBC's report adds the political and industrial context to the memoranda of understanding signed with Fujikura and Kyoto Fusioneering in Tokyo on October 28: Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi and German Chancellor Friedrich Merz were both present. The Kyoto Fusioneering agreement expands existing work on gyrotrons, the microwave devices that heat the plasma; the Fujikura agreement explores industrial-scale tape manufacturing in Germany, with Proxima CEO Francesco Sciortino saying Fujikura considers the tape potentially "the next optical fibre." Proxima expects to need roughly 20,000 kilometres of tape for its Alpha demonstrator and another 40,000 kilometres for the planned Stellaris power plant, and is aiming for net energy gain in the early 2030s. Competitors named: Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Helion Energy in the US, Canada's General Fusion, China Fusion Energy Co., and Japan's Helical Fusion — with analysts at clean-energy think tank Catalyse Europe arguing Europe must build the supply chain to turn its fusion research lead into industrial capability.
Watch: Whether the Lower Saxony plant secures full financing and a site decision, whether the memoranda convert into binding supply orders, and progress toward the Alpha demonstrator and the early-2030s net-energy-gain aim.