The era of the artificial sun is coming: Before commercialization, the other side of the nuclear fusion market that was first fueled by ‘construction specials’ > News

The nuclear fusion power plant construction market is expected to grow to approximately KRW 110 trillion by 2040, a figure that far exceeds the revenue from electricity sales that will be earned after the power plant is in operation. This phenomenon suggests that nuclear fusion goes beyond its value as a future power source and provides enormous economic opportunities for the current supply chain and construction engineering market. This is why big tech companies such as Google, Amazon, and Microsoft are pouring astronomical amounts of money into nuclear fusion startups to provide stable power supply to AI data centers. Nuclear fusion is now moving beyond the cynical joke that it will always be a 20-year technology, and is transforming into a practical business model that should deliver tangible engineering results within the next 5 to 10 years.

China's aggressive actions are at the forefront of the race for technological hegemony. China is concentrating its national capabilities with the goal of conducting the world's first nuclear fusion ignition experiment next year, and is systematically implementing a roadmap to verify the sustainability and commercialization potential of the fusion reaction through experimental devices such as EAST and BEST. China's speed is fast enough to threaten ITER, an international nuclear fusion project centered on the United States and Europe, and reflects the country's will to reorganize the energy order. Not to be outdone, local governments such as the U.S. state of Tennessee are proactively preparing regulations related to nuclear fusion power plants and creating an institutional fence for technology commercialization, and the global competition to build a nuclear fusion economic zone is accelerating.

Meanwhile, behind the rapid development of the nuclear fusion ecosystem, there is also a shadow of structural vulnerability in the supply chain. Production of key materials such as superconducting magnets is concentrated in certain countries or a small number of companies, so bottlenecks are likely to occur if demand surges in the future. In the case of Korea, despite having the world's highest level of nuclear fusion technology, it is evaluated that it is showing a somewhat cautious attitude in the competition to dominate the commercial supply chain. However, as Hyundai Engineering and the Korea Institute of Fusion Energy recently joined hands to design a small demonstration reactor, the domestic industry is also moving away from research center-centered technology development and jumping into earnest efforts to secure engineering capabilities for actual plant construction.

The diversification of next-generation nuclear fusion technology is also a notable trend. Going beyond the traditional magnetic field confinement method called 'Tokamak', Korean researchers led by GIST are expanding their technological horizons by carrying out national research projects to secure the original technology for nuclear fusion using lasers. This is an attempt to internalize the potential of laser fusion, proven through the performance of the U.S. National Ignition Facility, into a domestic research base, with the goal of creating a future power plant that is differentiated from existing methods. Domestic companies such as Doosan Energy, Mobis, and Korea Steel are also steadily strengthening their position in the nuclear fusion value chain by participating in global projects by leveraging their ultra-high temperature facility manufacturing and control system technology.