The demand for artificial intelligence has surged, and there is a global energy crisis, with the United States being overtaken by China in the field of nuclear fusion.

The chairman of Pegatron, Tung Tzu-hsien, recently introduced the concept of "green nuclear symbiosis" at a public hearing on the amendment of the "Nuclear Reactor Facility Regulation Act." For the technology industry, operations cannot run without electricity. With the high development of artificial intelligence, insufficient power will be a serious problem. Tung provided data to support that relying solely on green energy is inadequate and emphasized the need to rethink how to combine and distribute green energy with nuclear energy.

Nuclear fusion is known as the holy grail of clean energy, producing four times more energy per kilogram of fuel than traditional nuclear fission, and four million times more than coal, without generating greenhouse gases or long-lived radioactive waste. Ignition Research estimates that by 2050, the market size will reach at least 1 trillion dollars.

After leading the field of nuclear fusion for decades, the United States is now being caught up by China, which is investing double the funding and building projects at a record pace. Nuclear Fusion (核融合, translated in Hong Kong and China as 核聚變), is becoming a competitive arena between the United States and China.

Andrew Holland, the CEO of the Fusion Industry Association (abbreviated as FIA(), stated that if one is concerned about artificial intelligence and energy leadership, investment in nuclear fusion is essential. If the United States does not take the lead in this area, then China will.

Fundamentals and Background of Nuclear Fusion

In 1952, the United States conducted its first hydrogen bomb test, utilizing nuclear fusion on a large scale. When hydrogen atoms reach sufficiently extreme temperatures, they fuse together, forming a superheated gas called plasma, which then undergoes a fusion reaction. This is how the United States achieved the historic first fusion ignition and produced net energy at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (NIF) in 2022.

Data from the American Fusion Industrial Association shows that since then, private investment in American fusion startups has soared from 1.2 billion dollars in 2021 to 8 billion dollars. Among the more than 40 member companies of the FIA, 25 are located in the United States.

The money, scale, and speed of the U.S.-China nuclear development track

The United States was the first to invent nuclear fission technology, while China started constructing its first reactor nearly forty years later. However, the number of nuclear fission power plants built in China far exceeds that of other countries. China joined the nuclear fusion race about fifty years later than the United States, at which time it collaborated with over thirty countries to build the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) fusion mega project in France. However, the ITER project subsequently faced significant delays.

There is competition between countries, but the U.S. private sector is still leading. According to the FIA, six billion dollars of the world's eight billion dollars in private fusion investments are in the United States. Although the United States has the most active nuclear power plants, China is the king of new projects. When it comes to public funding, China is far ahead. According to the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Fusion Energy Science, Beijing invests $1.5 billion a year in energy projects, while the U.S. federal government has spent an average of about $800 million a year on fusion research over the past few years.

President Trump increased support for nuclear energy (including nuclear fusion) during his first term, and this policy has continued into Biden's term. In the context of large-scale layoffs at the federal government, it remains unclear where Trump's 2.0 nuclear fusion policy will develop. In February, U.S. senators and nuclear fusion experts released a report calling for the federal government to allocate $10 billion to help maintain the United States' leading position.

However, in terms of reactor scale, the United States has lost its leading position. Generally speaking, the larger the footprint, the higher the efficiency of the reactor in heating and confining the plasma, thereby increasing the chances of net energy.

A series of satellite images provided by Planet Labs to CNBC shows that China will rapidly build a new giant laser fusion power station in 2024. CNA states that the safety dome where the fusion reaction occurs is approximately twice the size of the U.S. laser fusion program NIF. FIA's Holland indicates that China's nuclear power plants are likely to adopt a mixed generation method combining fusion and fission.

Nuclear fusion and fission mixed fuel is essentially like replicating a bomb. The United States has a set of regulatory systems that determine safety, and this type of fuel cannot be utilized in the U.S.; it will never be launched, and it is merely a power plant. However, under the regime in China, what the neighbors say is not important; as long as the government wants to do it, they will proceed.

TAE Technologies CEO Michl Binderbauer stated that whoever possesses essentially limitless abundant energy can influence everything they can imagine. The American nuclear fusion startup Helion told CNBC that China is copying American patent designs, which is also why China can quickly catch up and overtake the United States.

American talents and scientists come to China to help develop nuclear power.

Due to budget cuts in domestic nuclear fusion research in the United States, many universities have been forced to halt R&D projects and new machinery, with researchers being dispatched to China and other countries to learn and develop. Bob Mumgaard, co-founder and CEO of Commonwealth Fusion Systems, stated that the U.S. is not building new nuclear power plants but is instead helping China build theirs, which is a huge mistake. According to Nikkei Asia, China currently holds more fusion patents than any other country, and the number of PhDs in fusion science and engineering is ten times that of the United States.

In addition to human resources, fusion projects also require a large amount of materials, such as high-power magnets, special metals, capacitors, and power semiconductors. China is taking action to monopolize the supply chain of various materials, similar to its approach in dominating the solar cell and electric vehicle battery markets.

Stable and abundant electricity is a crucial public issue that cannot be delayed. However, discussions on energy public issues in Taiwan are quite limited. This article is a comprehensive compilation and edit. For those interested in this topic, you can watch CNBC's video "How China Could Beat The U.S. To Nuclear Fusion, As AI Power Needs Surge" for more professional and academic discussions.

This article discusses the surge in demand for artificial intelligence, the global energy crisis, and how the United States has been overtaken by China in the field of nuclear fusion. It first appeared on Chain News ABMedia.