Shanghai has stepped up its push into commercial nuclear fusion, with a local start-up securing a record fundraising round as the city moves to deploy long-term capital into one of the world's most capital-intensive and technically challenging energy technologies.
The round was led by Shanghai state-owned investors, including Shanghai Science & Technology Venture Capital Group and the Shanghai Future-oriented Industries Fund, with participation from other financial and strategic backers.
Founded in 2021, Startorus Fusion is pursuing a spherical tokamak approach, a compact variant of the tokamak design that proponents say could improve magnetic efficiency and lower engineering costs. In late 2024, the company said it had completed initial engineering validation on its SUNIST-2 device and was preparing to build NTST, a negative-triangularity spherical tokamak that would be the first of its kind globally if successful.
The funding comes as Shanghai steps up efforts to back fusion and other frontier technologies with long-term state capital. The Shanghai Future-oriented Industries Fund, launched in 2024 with full municipal backing, started with 10 billion yuan and expanded to 15 billion yuan in 2025, with a 15-year investment horizon.
Shanghai-based teams are also pursuing different reactor designs. While Startorus Fusion focuses on spherical tokamaks, Energy Singularity is developing fully high-temperature superconducting tokamaks, and Honghu Fusion is exploring the stellarator route. Fuel strategies vary, with Dongsheng Fusion working on deuterium–helium-3 fusion, while Shanghai Electric is collaborating with the ENN Energy Research Institute on hydrogen–boron fusion.
Despite the recent surge in investment, fusion energy is still widely seen as a long-term prospect, with large-scale commercial deployment unlikely in the near term. How quickly recent capital inflows translate into engineering progress remains an open question.
