Heard nuclear fusion is making big moves? The world's first high-temperature superconducting tokamak has been completed! | BlueRun Ventures Headlines

Xiaochi here with some big news from the fusion energy world!

On the evening of March 3, CCTV News Network featured Energy Singularity's Honghuang-70 high-temperature superconducting tokamak in its special report "Frontline Research: Accelerating New Quality Productive Forces — Shanghai Seizes the Commanding Heights of Future Industries." The device has just completed final assembly, marking the completion of all construction work.

This is the world's first high-temperature superconducting tokamak, and the world's first fully superconducting tokamak developed and built by a commercial company.

You might be wondering — what makes this milestone significant enough to land on CCTV News Network?

BlueRun Ventures was Energy Singularity's first-round investor, so let us break it down for you.

What does the completion of Honghuang-70's final assembly mean?

The completion of final assembly for Honghuang-70 — the world's first high-temperature superconducting tokamak — represents a major milestone for the fusion industry. It validates the engineering feasibility of tokamak devices based on high-temperature superconducting magnets, confirming this viability through physical design, magnet design, and final assembly.

What is controlled nuclear fusion?

Controlled nuclear fusion, also known as artificial sun, offers virtually unlimited, economical, schedulable, clean, and safe energy. It represents the ultimate form of energy humanity can harness at our current stage of scientific development. Its goal is to achieve energy freedom for humanity and propel civilization into its next phase.

I heard there are multiple technical approaches to fusion. What makes the high-temperature superconducting tokamak special?

Countries worldwide have long invested in controlled fusion research. Among all approaches, the tokamak stands out with the most outstanding performance — its fusion triple product is 2-4 orders of magnitude higher than other routes. It has become the mainstream approach for magnetic confinement fusion, attracting the bulk of research resources, funding, and talent while accumulating the richest experimental data and engineering experience. Most fusion devices built or under construction are tokamaks, including well-known facilities such as DIII-D in the United States, JT-60SA in Japan, JET in the UK, EAST and HL-2M in China, KSTAR in South Korea, and the under-construction ITER and SPARC.

Why did BlueRun believe Energy Singularity could pull this off?

Making this happen requires three things. First, strong foundations in physics — the underlying factor driven by scientific literacy and engineering capability, something found in only a few hundred to a few thousand people globally. Second, people with serious engineering chops — drawing from the talent density built up over 50 years of nuclear power plant construction in China and the US, there are perhaps a few hundred thousand people worldwide who could tackle fusion's engineering challenges. Third, a team with entrepreneurial experience that knows how to communicate with investors and government, and understands commercialization — and that narrows things down to single digits globally. Energy Singularity checks all three boxes.

Energy Singularity was co-founded by multiple overseas-returned experts in theoretical physics, plasma physics, and high-temperature superconductivity, dedicated to exploring commercially viable fusion energy technology and ultimately achieving human energy freedom. Their team members come from top institutions including Stanford University, Princeton University, Peking University, Tsinghua University, and Shanghai Jiao Tong University, bringing world-class R&D capabilities, engineering skills, creativity, and professional experience spanning high-temperature superconductivity, plasma physics, artificial intelligence, and more.

What's Energy Singularity's next move?

Qimen is an AI-based plasma operation control system independently developed by Energy Singularity. It will first be deployed for Honghuang-70's operation and continuously iterated. Meanwhile, Energy Singularity has begun developing Jingtian — a core component for next-generation high-field tokamaks. Honghuang-70, the Qimen system, and Jingtian will together lay the foundation for Honghuang-200, Energy Singularity's next-generation high-field advanced tokamak with commercial power generation potential.

Turns out our firm really does have an idealist streak — we've backed quite a few of these "future industries" companies that CCTV News Network talks about.

Indeed. Throughout human history, every energy technology revolution has driven innovation and transformation equivalent to over 30% of global economic output. Nuclear fusion is humanity's ultimate energy solution, and it's poised to take on that role. Elon Musk recently said AI will consume all the world's electricity by 2025 — a bit exaggerated, but the massive compute demands of AI are certainly intensifying the hunger for green energy. BlueRun Ventures will continue focusing on new energy infrastructure, supporting innovation in batteries, hydrogen energy, charging and energy storage, and exploring the convergence of energy and compute infrastructure.

I get it — our firm works with founders to redefine future technology and life from zero to one. The stars and the sea are our mission!

That's right, though Xiaochi, you're getting increasingly cringeworthy 😓

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Originating in Silicon Valley, BlueRun Ventures was established in 2005 as a venture capital firm focused on early-stage startups.

Currently, BlueRun Ventures manages multiple USD and RMB dual-currency funds in China, with assets under management exceeding RMB 15 billion, making it one of the largest early-stage funds domestically. The firm invests primarily at Pre-A and Series A stages across technology, consumer, and healthcare sectors, having backed nearly 200 startups including Li Auto, Waterdrop, QingCloud, Guazi.com, Qudian, Ganji.com, Energy Monster, Gaussian Robotics, Songguo Mobility, Yuntu Semiconductor, Machenike, CloudSaints, Anxinnet, BioMap, and others.

BlueRun Ventures has been ranked #1 on Zero2IPO's "Top 30 Early-Stage Investment Institutions in China" and ChinaVenture's "Top 30 Best Early-Stage Venture Capital Institutions in China," and was named among Preqin's Top 10 VC Fund Managers Globally for Sustained High Returns.

The firm has also received consecutive recognition from Forbes China, 36Kr, Cyzone, Caixin Media, CBNweekly, Jiemian, and other media as "China's Best Early-Stage Institution," "China's Top Venture Capital Firm," "Most Founder-Friendly Early-Stage Institution," and "Most Influential Early-Stage Institution."