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🎥 100-Year Quest for Fusion Energy with Steven Cowley, Director, PPPL
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Kira Colburn
Kira Colburn
April 22, 2026

At our latest SOSV Deep Tech Live, we sat down with Sir Steven Cowley, Director of the Princeton Plasma Physics Lab (PPPL) to discuss the “holy grail of the energy transition”: fusion.

While fusion has long been the subject of the joke that its “30 years away and always will be,” Sir Steven argues that the timeline has finally shifted: We’re no longer just imagining fusion…we’re calculating it!

Spurred by a new rate of innovation (hello AI), the private fusion sector has raised nearly $10 billion over the last 5 years. While Sir Steven remains skeptical of headlines promising commercial scale by 2028 (as Helion promised Microsoft a few years ago), he believes we’re going to see cost effective fusion energy at scale in “about a decade or so.”

The Perfect Problem for AI

For most of Sir Steven’s career, scientists couldn’t accurately model what was happening inside a 200-million-degree plasma reactor. Today, high-performance computing and AI allows researchers to find optimum configurations and simulate experiments before they are even built. Initiatives like the DOE’s Genesis Mission, launched in late 2025 are further accelerating this shift, supporting AI in science.

Technological Breakthroughs 

  1. High-Temperature Superconductors (HTS): PPPL remains one of the world leaders in superconductors capable of generating magnetic fields that can hold fusion fuel, allowing it to reach extreme temperatures without touching the reactor walls, essentially creating a “magnetic bottle.” Several startups are already developing these HTS magnets, which allow for stronger fields.
  2. Laser Fusion: Cowley pointed to the 2022 breakthrough at the National Ignition Facility (NIF), which used lasers to compress fusion fuel to the size of a peppercorn. When it implodes, this “little fusion bomb” gives off the energy of about five or six hand grenades.

This fusion innovation has implications across multiple fields. By advancing the same physics behind stellar fusion and plasma confinement, we open up new pathways for high-energy industrial processes. This enables applications like the production of ultra-pure diamonds (critical for quantum sensors and high-power electronics that conduct heat better than silicon), next-generation semiconductor architectures like 3D chip stacking, and advanced critical mineral extraction, among others

HAX Plasma Forge

These are the types of ideas we’re exploring at the HAX Plasma Forge, PPPL’s newest Plasma Innovation Center funded in part by the New Jersey Economic Development Authority (NJEDA) and run by SOSV’s HAX. Our goal is to create an environment where the fusion, semiconductor, advanced materials, and industrial processing industries can integrate cutting-edge plasma physics into their specific problem areas. We’re looking for the most promising companies in these spaces: Apply to the HAX Plasma Forge today.

🎥 Find the live recording below as well as on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, YouTube, or wherever else you get your podcasts.

đź“Ť Broadcast live from our SOSV NY event space in Manhattan, SOSV Deep Tech LIVE is our monthly video podcast series exploring the frontiers of deep tech with leading founders, researchers, and technologists. Check out some of our most popular videos:

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