Proxima Fusion is placing a €140 million ($162.6 million) bet on a critical ingredient for its reactors: superconducting tape.
The German fusion startup announced Wednesday that it plans to build a factory to produce fusion-grade high-temperature superconducting (HTS) tape, securing a key component for its reactor design.
A Strategic Bet on Supply Chain Independence
The move comes months after Proxima raised €411 million, catapulting it up the ranks of the best-funded fusion startups. The company plans to finance the factory through a mix of public and private funding, with the state of Lower Saxony contributing €21 million.
Why HTS Tape Matters for Fusion
Proxima will use HTS tape to generate the powerful magnetic fields needed to contain the plasma that drives fusion reactions. The startup's demonstration plant will require 20,000 kilometers of HTS tape, while its planned commercial power plant will need twice that amount.
Today, the vast majority of HTS tape is manufactured in China and Japan, making Proxima's factory a bid for supply chain resilience in a sector where demand is set to surge.
A Foundational Technology
HTS tape emerged a little over a decade ago as one of the fundamental breakthroughs enabling the current generation of fusion power startups. Because it can generate strong magnetic fields at relatively high temperatures, HTS tape enables smaller, more efficient reactor designs.
Beyond Fusion
While fusion power is expected to consume a large share of global HTS tape production, other companies are tapping the technology for different applications. Veir, a startup backed by Microsoft, is using HTS tape to boost the efficiency and power density of data centers—a market seeing explosive growth in 2026 as AI workloads push energy infrastructure to its limits.
via TechCrunch