Canada's Fusion Gambit: Betting on Star Power for Clean Energy Leadership

PICKERING, Ontario – November 28, 2025 – In a decisive move to secure its place in the future of clean energy, Canada has formalized a major public-private partnership to establish a national Centre for Fusion Energy (CFE). The initiative, backed by a combined $91.5 million from federal and provincial governments and private industry, aims to transform Canada’s deep expertise in nuclear fission into a springboard for leadership in the nascent but rapidly accelerating global fusion industry.

Announced today, the collaboration brings together Atomic Energy of Canada Limited (AECL), Canadian Nuclear Laboratories (CNL), Ontario Power Generation (OPG), and fusion startup Stellarex. The federal government is contributing $33 million in in-kind research via CNL, the province of Ontario is investing $19.5 million through OPG, and Stellarex is committing up to $39 million. The CFE represents the most significant step yet in a deliberate national strategy to harness fusion—the same process that powers the sun—as a source of virtually limitless, carbon-free energy.

“Fusion is a critical, long-term, global scientific challenge, and Canada has developed a number of unique capabilities that will allow us to play an important role in its future,” said Fred Dermarkar, President and CEO of AECL. This partnership is designed to consolidate those capabilities, creating an integrated ecosystem to accelerate research, develop a domestic supply chain, and attract further investment.

A National Strategy Forged in Nuclear Fire

The Centre for Fusion Energy is not an isolated bet but the cornerstone of a carefully constructed national strategy. It builds upon a series of recent investments and policy frameworks designed to position Canada at the forefront of the fusion race. In June 2024, CNL published its “Fusion Energy for Canada” roadmap, a call to action that framed fusion as a critical tool for achieving Net-Zero by 2050 and beyond. The roadmap argued that fusion was transitioning from a purely scientific problem to an engineering one, requiring the kind of industrial and regulatory collaboration the CFE now embodies.

This strategy has been backed by tangible capital. The federal government has already made significant investments in British Columbia’s General Fusion, which is developing Magnetized Target Fusion technology. Meanwhile, a 2024 joint venture between CNL and Japan’s Kyoto Fusioneering, called Fusion Fuel Cycles, is already constructing the UNITY-2 test facility at Chalk River Laboratories. Slated for operation in 2026, UNITY-2 will be a world-class platform for testing and de-risking the complex fuel cycle systems essential for any fusion power plant.

These initiatives, now unified under the CFE’s umbrella, signal a coordinated effort to leverage Canada's existing assets. “This new Centre better connects CNL’s deep experience and globally unique capabilities in tritium and materials research with the industrial partners seeking to move this promising clean energy technology towards deployment," noted Dr. Stephen Bushby, CNL's Vice-President of Science & Technology.

The Stellarator Bet and the Innovation Edge

A key pillar of the new Centre is the private partner, Stellarex. A 2022 spin-off from Princeton University with a team of veteran fusion scientists, Stellarex is pursuing the stellarator approach to magnetic confinement fusion. Unlike the more common tokamak design, which uses a powerful internal current to help hold the superheated plasma in place, a stellarator relies entirely on complex, externally wound magnetic coils. While historically more difficult to design, this approach avoids plasma disruptions that can plague tokamaks, offering a potential path to more stable, continuous operation—a key requirement for a commercial power plant.

Designing these intricate, non-symmetrical magnetic fields is a monumental computational challenge. This is where modern innovation comes into play. The success of next-generation fusion concepts like the stellarator increasingly relies on advanced computational modeling, where artificial intelligence and machine learning algorithms are used to rapidly iterate through trillions of design possibilities to optimize plasma stability and confinement. This synergy of physics and advanced computation is central to accelerating the development timeline from decades to years, fitting squarely within the innovation focus of the new Centre.

For Stellarex, the partnership provides access to CNL’s world-leading expertise in tritium handling, safety analysis, and materials science—critical components for turning a theoretical design into a functional prototype. “Canada's nuclear expertise and its unique global competitive advantages make it an ideal place to accelerate fusion energy development,” said Spencer Pitcher, Stellarex’s CEO-Designate.

Ontario's Tritium Ace and Economic Ambitions

While the strategy is national, its heart beats in Ontario. The province’s pivotal role is built on a half-century legacy of nuclear leadership and one invaluable, globally unique asset: tritium. As a by-product of OPG’s fleet of CANDU fission reactors, Ontario is home to one of the world’s only significant commercial supplies of this rare hydrogen isotope, which is the primary fuel for most leading fusion reactor designs. This gives Canada a powerful strategic advantage, transforming a historical by-product into a critical resource for a next-generation industry.

OPG is already leveraging this advantage on the world stage, having signed an MOU in 2025 to explore supplying tritium to the UK Atomic Energy Authority. The CFE will now anchor this capability at home. “As fusion energy represents the next frontier in clean 24/7 power, Ontario is again leading the way,” said Stephen Lecce, Ontario's Minister of Energy and Mines.

The economic stakes are enormous. Projections suggest that the successful commercialization of fusion could be worth over $500 billion to Canada’s economy by 2100 and create over 63,000 high-quality jobs by 2050. The CFE is explicitly tasked with developing the fusion-ready workforce and supply chains needed to realize this potential, ensuring the economic benefits are anchored in the province and the country.

The Long Road from Promise to Power Grid

Despite the strategic planning and significant investment, the path to commercial fusion power remains steep. The global landscape is a hive of activity, with private investment surpassing US$10 billion and international consortiums like the multi-decade ITER project in France making slow but steady progress. Companies are now projecting the first commercial power plants could come online between 2030 and 2035, an astonishingly ambitious timeline in a field historically known for perpetual delays.

However, the fundamental technical hurdles that have challenged physicists for 70 years remain. Achieving sustained net-positive energy gain, developing materials that can withstand the intense heat and neutron bombardment inside a reactor for decades, and ensuring economic viability against other clean energy sources are all monumental challenges. The story of fusion is littered with revised timelines and funding challenges, a reality that tempers the current wave of optimism.

The CFE is Canada’s bold attempt to navigate these challenges through focused, collaborative innovation. By marrying public-sector expertise with private-sector agility and leveraging unique national advantages, Canada is not just entering the fusion race—it is positioning itself to be a key architect of its future. The success of this gambit will depend on whether this coalition can deliver the technological breakthroughs needed to finally turn the promise of star power into a reliable source of energy on Earth.