News Release

Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd. (Head office: Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo, Japan, President: Hideya Moridaira) entered into a new share subscription agreement for an approximately 10 million pound investment in Tokamak Energy Ltd. (Head office: Oxford, UK, CEO: Warrick Mathews). In addition, a memorandum of understanding (the MOU) was signed in conjunction with the investment, which will strengthen the partnership with the company to drive forward commercial fusion energy.

Fusion offers the following three advantages in power generation applications.
I. No carbon dioxide generation. II. Deuterium, the main fuel, is abundantly contained in seawater, safe, and no worries about running dry. III. The reaction ceases immediately after the fuel supply disruption and no risk of running out of control. From these facts, expectations are rising around the world for the development of nuclear fusion reactors as safe and sustainable energy source.

In the Furukawa Electric Group Vision 2030, the Group commits as follows. To build a sustainable world and make people’s life safe, peaceful and rewarding, Furukawa Electric Group will create solutions for the new generation of global infrastructure combining information, energy and mobility. The development and supply of products including superconducting wires by utilizing our knowledge of materials such as metals, and the contribution to the realization of fusion energy considered as the ultimate energy to solve environmental and energy problems, will lead to the achievement of Vision 2030.

To achieve a commercial fusion reactor, superconducting magnets are indispensable for condensing fuel plasma compactly and boxing it efficiently inside the reactor. The Company has been developing and manufacturing a niobium-based low-temperature superconducting (LTS) wire rod used in winding wire for superconducting magnets in Nikko Works for many years. This LTS wire rod is also used in superconducting magnets including International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) in France and the critical plasma test equipment JT-60SA in Japan.

Tokamak Energy is proposing a spherical tokamak with a proprietary design of ultra-high magnetic field and superconducting magnets which is also the preferred route to fusion of the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) STEP project and other organizations. The yttrium-based high-temperature superconducting (HTS) wire rod, developed and manufactured by SuperPower Inc., (Head office: USA) in the Group, has excellent high magnetic field characteristics and has contributed to the development of the compact fusion reactor by Tokamak Energy. In addition, the Company and SuperPower signed an initial memorandum of understanding with Tokamak Energy in May 2022 regarding the future supply plan for hundreds of kilometers of HTS wire rods necessary for the construction of the fusion reactor.

By signing the MOU and the new share subscription agreement, in addition to strengthening the development system of the compact fusion reactor by the three companies, joint marketing and R&D will also be promoted in the development and commercialization of high-field electromagnets which will be important in the future in the fields such as medicine, drug discovery, aerospace, and next-generation transportation.

The Company and SuperPower together with Tokamak Energy will jointly develop new markets including Japan, and conduct R&D aiming at the improvement of performance and reliability of HTS wire rods and HTS magnets using them, and further solidify our position as a leading global company in each field.

Comment from Hideya Moridaira, President of Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd.:
“We are pleased to become a shareholder in Tokamak Energy through a strategic investment. The compact fusion reactors by Tokamak Energy have been highly evaluated in the UK and other countries around the world, and we are pleased that our superconducting technology can contribute to this. Considering that Japan also, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science, and Technology has decided to add fusion energy to the development themes as part of moonshot research and development goals promoted as a task force, we believe that many opportunities are emergent for both of us.”

Comment from Warrick Mathews, CEO of Tokamak Energy Ltd.:
“I’m delighted that our relationship with Furukawa Electric continues to go from strength to strength, both through this new collaboration agreement and Furukawa Electric becoming a significant investor in Tokamak Energy. Joining forces on HTS research and development will enable greater pace to overcoming key challenges on the path to commercial fusion energy and create further market opportunities for Tokamak Energy’s dedicated HTS magnets business.”

Since its establishment in 1884, Furukawa Electric Group has 127 group companies including Furukawa Electric Co., Ltd., and approximately 50,000 employees around the world. And provide a wide range of technologies, products, and services around the world for infrastructure fields such as information and energy, automotive systems fields, and electronics fields with our 4 core technologies of metals, polymers, photonics, high frequency.
Since its establishment in March 2000, SuperPower has been developing and commercializing HTS technologies for a variety of applications such as energy, medical, transportation, and research sectors where high energy density, high magnetic fields, or environmentally friendly properties are emphasized.

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Tokamak Energy is a leading commercial fusion energy company based near Oxford, UK and is pursuing the global deployment of commercial fusion through the combined development of spherical tokamaks, with high temperature superconducting (HTS) magnets.
The company, founded in 2009 as a spin-off from the Culham Centre for Fusion Energy, currently employs a growing team of over 220 people with talent from the UK and experts from around the world. It combines world leading scientific, engineering, industrial and commercial capabilities.
The company has 70 families of patent applications and has raised $250 million, comprising $200m from private investors and $50m from the UK and US governments. Once realised, fusion energy will be clean, low cost and globally deployable – a key enabler for meeting world energy demands and climate policy goals.

More information

Tokamak Energy and Furukawa Electric Group Strengthen Relationship to Progress Commercial Fusion Energy