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Commonwealth Fusion Systems joins the ITPA

10 Jun 2025 - Alberto Loarte, head of the ITER Science Division

The International Tokamak Physics Activity provides a framework for internationally coordinated fusion research activities among the ITER Members. Replying to the ITER Council’s request in late 2023 to engage with private sector fusion initiatives, and as reported in a recent Newsline article, the ITER Organization and Members have carried out the behind-the-scenes work to make it possible for private sector initiatives to access ITPA. Under this new framework, staff from Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), the world’s largest private fusion company, have joined ITPA activities for the first time on the same basis as staff from publicly funded research institutes that are located in the ITER Members.

In January 2025, the Coordinating Committee of the International Tokamak Physics Activity made the formal decision to open its coordinated research activities to privately funded initiatives. Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) is the first to complete all of the formal steps; as a result, some of its staff joined the 34th meeting of the ITPA Integrated Operation Scenarios Topical Group in San Diego, California, from 2 to 6 June.

The International Tokamak Physics Activity (ITPA) has provided a framework for internationally coordinated fusion research activities for ITER Members since 2001. Since 2008, it has operated under the auspices of the ITER Organization. Its participants are the ITER Members, who provide experts from their national fusion research institutions to carry out research in a wide range of physics areas. This research is implemented by seven topical groups under the chairmanship of an ITER Member expert and the co-chairmanship of two experts, one coming from the ITER Organization.

Until early this year, the experts and institutions participating in ITPA activities came exclusively from publicly funded research centres. Staff from privately funded initiatives could be invited to attend individual topical group meetings on an ad-hoc basis, but they were excluded from long-term involvement in ITPA research activities. 

As announced in a recent Newsline article, this was set to change this year thanks to the modifications recently implemented in the ITPA Charter and the International Energy Agency (IEA) Technology Collaboration Programme on Tokamak Programmes (CTP TCP), which provides the legal basis for the implementation of ITPA activities.

Devon Battaglia, Head of Physics Operations for Commonwealth Fusion Systems, shares plans for SPARC with the ITPA Integrated Operation Scenarios Topical Group. SPARC is a high-magnetic-field tokamak designed to demonstrate net energy gain across the fusion plasma.

Taking advantage of these new possibilities, Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) recently completed all of the formal steps to join the IEA CTP-TCP agreement and the ITPA, which enables selected members of its staff to join the ITPA activities. The collaboration began last week, with staff joining (by teleconference and in person) the meetings of two topical groups: the Integrated Operational Scenarios group and the Divertor and Scrape-Off Layer Physics group.

At its headquarters in Devens, Massachusetts, CFS is building SPARC: a high-magnetic-field tokamak designed to demonstrate net energy gain across the fusion plasma and planned as a commercially relevant precursor to a fusion power plant called ARC. Both SPARC and ARC are designed with high-temperature superconductor magnet technology.

The ITER Organization and Members look forward to a fruitful collaboration between public and privately funded initiatives—in the framework of both the ITPA and other channels for knowledge transfer—for mutual benefit and to speed up the development of fusion as a practical energy source.

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