Fusion power has been the energy source of the future for, oh, about seventy years now. But every so often, a company does something that makes you think the future might actually be getting closer. That's what happened Thursday with General Fusion Group Ltd. (GFUZ), whose shares are trading higher after the company said its LM26 fusion machine heated plasma to more than 12 million degrees Celsius, or above 1 keV, using its Magnetized Target Fusion technology.
The company also recorded significant heating of ions, another important part of the fusion process.
LM26 Reaches Key Fusion Milestone
The achievement is the first of three technical milestones planned for LM26. The next goal is to heat the plasma to 10 keV, with upgrades to the machine already underway.
The final goal is to reach the Lawson criterion, the point at which a fusion reaction can produce more energy than it takes to create it. That's the whole ballgame, really. Everything before it is just practice.
How General Fusion's Technology Works
General Fusion said LM26 is the first fusion machine to reach 1 keV using its relatively slow compression approach.
The company uses Magnetized Target Fusion, which combines magnetic fields with compression to heat plasma over milliseconds. Other plasma compression technologies can operate over microseconds or even nanoseconds. Slower, in this case, is not worse. It's a different path to the same destination.
For a future commercial plant, the company plans to use a liquid-metal wall that could protect the machine from neutrons, help produce fuel and capture heat. That heat could then be used to generate steam and produce electricity through a turbine. Which is a fancy way of saying: the same steam turbine logic that powers most of the world's electricity, just with a much more exotic heat source.
The company aims to have its first commercial fusion plant operating around 2035.
First Publicly Listed Fusion Company
In July 2026, General Fusion went public with around $150 million in available cash. This includes proceeds from a private placement and trust funds to advance its Magnetized Target Fusion (MTF) technology.
The funding is expected to support the company's Lawson program through key technical milestones targeted for completion by 2028.
General Fusion's MTF technology is designed to address major challenges in fusion commercialization by using existing materials and avoiding the need for superconducting magnets or high-powered lasers. That last part matters. A lot of fusion approaches require either absurdly powerful lasers or superconducting magnets that are themselves engineering nightmares. Skipping both is a meaningful shortcut.
In early 2025, the company began operating its LM26 fusion demonstration machine. It was built in less than two years and represents the first MTF system developed at a commercially relevant scale.
GFUZ Price Action: General Fusion Group shares were up 12.96% at $8.58 at the time of publication on Thursday, according to market data.
