The new FAST fusion project shows how quickly Japan can move when industry and academia decide to pull together. Starlight Engine and Kyoto Fusioneering wrapped up the conceptual design in just a year, marking the first major step under the national Fusion Energy Innovation Strategy. It’s a private-sector push that clearly wants to make fusion practical, not theoretical.
FAST keeps a compact, low-aspect-ratio tokamak layout similar to JT-60SA, aiming for 50 MW of fusion output using deuterium-tritium fuel. Instead of focusing only on plasma physics, the team is building a full power-plant framework from day one, weaving in high-temperature superconducting magnets, liquid breeding blankets, tritium handling, and energy conversion systems. It’s designed as a whole machine, not an experiment.
Big names are now in the mix. Sumitomo Mitsui Banking, Hitachi, Mitsubishi, and JGC join top universities from Tokyo to Osaka, while Kyoto Fusioneering’s fundraising hit ¥16.2 billion in equity by 2025. That capital moves the project into site selection, regulatory preparation, and procurement as they line up construction after 2028.
Engineering design is now underway, with first plasma expected in 2035 and demonstration runs by the late 2030s. The team stresses that “power generation” refers to producing energy from fusion reactions, not necessarily net electricity to the grid. Even so, it places Japan firmly in the global race toward practical fusion energy.
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