Lab to Market Leadership with Chris Reichhelm

Nuclear Fusion Breakthrough: The Tokamak Energy Story | Dr. David Kingham

• Deep Tech Leaders • Season 1 • Episode 24

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Nuclear fusion has been the ultimate ‘30 years away’ technology for decades. But is that finally changing?

In this episode, Dr. David Kingham, founder of Tokamak Energy, shares the extraordinary journey of building one of the world's leading nuclear fusion companies from just three scientists and £200,000 to achieving 100 million degree plasma temperatures - the critical threshold for commercial fusion energy.

David reveals how they transformed breakthrough superconductor technology through ingenious Heath Robinson style experiments, navigated the challenges of scaling moonshot Deep Tech, and evolved from pure science project to commercial partnerships with governments worldwide.

Key insights include the power of resource-constrained innovation, building engineering capabilities for unprecedented challenges, and why fusion electricity generation could become reality by 2035.

Essential listening for Deep Tech leaders, energy innovators, and anyone fascinated by how breakthrough technologies transition from laboratory curiosities to commercial realities.


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Learn more about Lab to Market Leadership: https://www.deeptechleaders.com

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Podcast Production: Beauxhaus


David Kingham:

In a lot of, um, publicly funded programs, you have the big risk of, um, sunk cost argument. You know, we spent 30 million pounds on this. We have to proceed now. We never got into any, any of that sort of thinking. Uh, some of our very early shareholders said, you know, never take a decision to push on if the evidence doesn't support it. Um, and so we cut, you know, we cut a few things, learned fast, forced ourselves to do things with. Modest resources.

Chris Reichhelm:

Welcome to the Lab to Market Leadership podcast. Too many advanced science and engineering companies fail to deliver their innovations from the lab to the market. We are on a mission to change that. My name is Chris Reichhelm, and I'm the founder and CEO of Deep Tech leaders. Each week we speak with some of the world's leading entrepreneurs, investors, corporates, and policy makers about what it takes to succeed on the lab to market journey. Join us. Deep Tech is often associated with moonshot technology programs, and fewer programs can be considered more moonshot than nuclear fusion for years. It's always been one of those things that's 30 years away, but is it still with all of the development and all of the technology and all of the investment happening into fusion, are we getting closer? To help me answer this, I'm joined by Dr. David Kingham. The founder and original CEO of a company called Tokamak Energy. Tokamak could be one of the companies that helps us realize the benefits of nuclear fusion by the development of something called a spherical tokamak. If you don't know what that is, that's okay. I promise you'll find out with David. Today, I want to get into their lab to market journey. I wanna understand the types of milestones that have guided them from science Project is something more resembling a business. I wanna understand the skills, the experience, and the talents required to do really big things, things at the scale of a new form of energy generation. This is gonna be a great show. I hope you enjoy it. Let's get into it. David Kingham, thank you so much for joining me.

David Kingham:

Thanks, Chris. It's a pleasure to be with you today.

Chris Reichhelm:

As a founder and as a chief executive of the, the first Chief Executive of Tokamak Energy, I am thrilled to have you on the show and to learn more about the evolution of what has become. I think, uh, and it's no exaggeration to say this, one of the leading nuclear fusion companies in the world today, um, uh, promoting the spherical Tokamak design and, uh, it would be great to understand the lab to market journey that Tokamak has been on. And so as you've been around for this journey, uh, journey, I feel very fortunate to have you te take us back, if you would, to the beginning and you know Sure. What, you know, where did all of this start?

David Kingham:

Yes, it's been quite a long journey so far, and there's a few more miles to go. Um, so 15 years ago I teamed up with two scientists from the UK Government Research Laboratory, um, working on Fusion. And it would be fair to say they were frustrated by the slow progress, particularly of very large, um, government fusion programs. Um, in and now these two guys, Alan Sykes and Mikhail Gryaznevich had had fantastic success in the 1990s with a small spherical Tokamak. It had achieved record results, um, and was recognized, um, by US and UK government as being a very promising route to commercial fusion energy. But it was kind of lost in the noise behind the excitement of the Jet Tokamak at Culham, which achieved 16 megawatts of fusion power. So there was this little high performance device and a fantastic big 16 megawatt, um, fusion reactor. Uh, and then the whole world decided that, um, scaling up the jet tokamak, the one that achieved its 16 megawatts, scaling that up was the right way to go. And you know, we didn't all think that. Some of us thought I had to be a, uh, an alternative way to go, which might be faster and, um, more commercially relevant.

Chris Reichhelm:

Mm-hmm. And in those early days, was it just the three of you or were you starting to pull together the early foundation for a team? Beyond just the founders, really,

David Kingham:

just, yeah, just the three of us took, you know, a few helpers at the very early stage, and then some investors started to come in. Um, we were very fortunate with early investors. Um, we had, um, what, what is now the UK Science and Innovation Seed Fund, um, that's designed to help spin out technologies from government labs. Um, we had an investment from Oxford Instruments, uh, uh, superconducting magnet business, um, and from Sir Martin and Audrey Wood, um, who were the founders of Oxford Instruments, who really had a passion for getting small businesses started. So the, the, they were very much part of the team early on.

Chris Reichhelm:

And, and what is the focus about developing or scaling up that token Mac?

David Kingham:

Um, the initial focus was initially we thought fusion energy is, is too much for us to attempt. Um, and we should look at the spherical Tokamak as a scientific instrument with high performance plasmas. Mm-hmm. And basically wait until someone else comes up with some other innovation. Um, and we had an internal debate at the time around high temperature superconductors and, uh, chief scientist Mikhail Gryaznevichvi was, you know, saying, this has to happen. We, we need this new material. And I kept saying, well, it, that's fine, but it's not, um, manufactured as a. Usable engineering material yet. Um, and, you know, but he was, he was, he was right. We had to have it and I was right at the time. It wasn't ready. Yeah. But, uh, 2011, a guy at Oxford Instruments told us that they'd had a new batch of high temperature superconductor, uh, from a company called Superpower in, in the U.S. and that it was ready to use to make magnets. It was good enough. Um, so we thought, well, we better try it. So at that stage, Mikhail phoned up his friends in Prague and said, can I borrow your tokamak, uh, for the summer to do an experiment? And, I mean, Tokamak are not very common devices, so this is one big ask. So they said, um, well, you can, you can borrow it for two weeks. Um, at which stage we thought, can you really put a magnet on a Tokamak and two weeks? And, and the well, the answer is yes you can. So long as you've got everything prepared beforehand. Yeah. So this is, um, I mean it was a very, um, uh, Heath Robinson sort of, uh, yeah. Experiment involving a cryostat made of plywood, some aluminum foil so that it didn't leak and you could pour liquid nitrogen in, uh, and then a coil was wound out of 25 meters of this superconductor. We worked out how to connect. A power supply to the superconductor and it all sort of boiled and fizzed, but it worked. It worked. Yeah. We produced a, a significant mag magnetic field with very rudimentary set up and engineering and the talk mat worked. So, um, so then we went to, um, investors who were interested and said, actually this new material does the job we hoped, um, and we can see how to make more powerful magnets using this material. And it gives us a route to commercial fusion energy. Um, yes. And then we worked out all the other things we'd need to do on, on, on that journey.

Chris Reichhelm:

So, so that actually, you know, so getting to that, that milestone, if you will. So experimenting with this new material, the Heath Robinson approach you took to kind of validate that initial approach and the material. Yeah. How many people did you have in the company at that point?

David Kingham:

Um, three. Okay. Three. Yeah. Three of us at that point? Yes.

Chris Reichhelm:

And I mean, we had capital.

David Kingham:

Yeah. How much capital. But you had help from others too. Yeah.

Chris Reichhelm:

And how much

David Kingham:

capital had you raised as well? About $200 million. Two? No, about $200,000. Two. Okay.

Chris Reichhelm:

Hundred thousand dollars. Alright. So $200,000 raised at that point. Three people. And you had already come to a conclusion, hey, if we can now just continue to focus on this and build this and scale this up, we can get to a point that doesn't, that seems like actually a reasonable return given the amount of money invested. Sure. And, uh, and the talent that you had on board.

David Kingham:

Yeah, and we were, we were certainly first to really see that, um, high temperature superconductors could be used successfully to make magnets for magnetic confinement fusion when, when the material had first been discovered in 1987, lots of people were speculating that it could be useful for fusion. But then everything went quiet because manufacturing the superconductor was so difficult. It was only 2011 really, that the manufacturers had worked how to make the material, uh, that we're now able to use.

Chris Reichhelm:

And did Oxford Instruments continue to act as a partner or supplier to Tokamak energy, or did you have to go off and do this yourself?

David Kingham:

Um, yeah. So Oxford Instruments then worked with us for another four years mm-hmm. To scale up the technology. We were both learning about the material and the technology as, as we went forward, but we needed their superconducting magnet expertise. And we got to 2015 when we were able to demonstrate a plasma for over 24 hours in a small Tokamak constructed with high temperature superconducting magnets. Um, and that was a big milestone for the company. And that Yes, meant we could raise, um, about $15 million, um, okay. To really push things forward.

Chris Reichhelm:

And so, David, in terms of technology readiness level, at this point, by 2015 you get to that next milestone, where would you say you were at that point?

David Kingham:

Um. Yeah, it's technology, redness level two or three. I mean, it's, it's

Chris Reichhelm:

okay. A functional, functional time approach. Time. So this is still a function of research. This is a functional pro. Okay. Oh, that's interesting. Yep. Yeah. Alright. So you've, okay, so you're still very early stage there, but you've got enough to contain plasma, is that right? Am I understanding that correctly? To contain plasma for a period of 24 hours using materials and systems that would broadly be in place within a fully scaled Tokamak

David Kingham:

Yeah, yeah. No modest experiment by today's standards. Sure. But, but it, it, yeah. Did the job. Um, at that point we decided this, this superconducting material, this fantastic material, um, we need to build our own team. We can't be reliant on someone else to do the development because we want to go at, at our pace. Yes. Um, so we, but by then we had enough credibility, enough people knew about us that we could recruit a really good team and, and then you, you get this effect that, um, we're trying to build a business based on fusion and superconducting magnets and we're in a place Oxford, where there's 50 years history of research in tokamaks and 60 or 70 years history of research in superconducting magnets. Mm-hmm. So you've got all this human capital in the area. Yeah. That makes it feasible to do really difficult things.

Chris Reichhelm:

Yes. Some segments of the deep tech universe are associated with science projects. More than businesses. Yeah. And for many nuclear fusion has been one of those, the big Sure. You know, the big adage with nuclear fusion was it's always 30 years away. Yeah. And in until now, one gets the sense. Now hopefully it's not another 30 years. One gets the sense we're closing in on it. At what point was 2015 the point for you guys where it stuck, it shifted from kind of science project to now business?

David Kingham:

Um, no, I think it was still, still a science project at that stage. Um, if we a, after 2015 we, we were still, um, judging success of the business and, and reporting to shareholders based on technical progress. Um, there were no sort of commercial milestones. We weren't promising to sell anything to anybody. Yes. Um, we set a series of milestones, which were. Achieving a three Tesla magnet, a five Tesla magnet. Okay. Going up to 10. I mean, Tesla is a, a measure of magnetic field, uh, strength. Um, conventional superconductors can typically get up a bit above 10. Tesla. High temperature superconductors have the promise of getting to 25 Tesla, 30 Tesla or more if you need it. And they can do that in a fusion device, um, which low temperature superconductors really, really can't do. So we had to have these goals for increasing field strength. Yes. And we also set, um, a really big goal infusion of getting to 100 million degree plasma temperature. Yes. Um, now. In retrospect, why is that important? So, a hundred million degrees is, is really the threshold for necessary for commercial fusion energy. If you have a temperature that high, you get, um, energetic collisions between ions and that significantly increases the probability of fusion reactions happening. So you, you have to get your plasma to that sort of a hundred million degree and above temperature, and it doesn't matter whether it's a to America, spherical to America accelerator or laser inertial fusion, you still have to get your plasma to hundred million degrees. So you get collisions are energetic enough. So the combine and produce.

Chris Reichhelm:

Okay, so that's interesting. Regardless of the design, then that 100 million degrees is absolutely critical so that you create Yep. What sounds like the conditions for fusion then to start taking place.

David Kingham:

Yep. So we set that goal. Our next device we will reach a hundred million degrees and, um, very few fusion devices have actually reached that temperature. Um, the JET tokamak in the uk, TFTR in, in the states, a Japanese tokamak and more recently the National Ignition Facility in the States have gotta the, that sort of temperature. But yes, nothing, nothing else has,'cause it's really, really difficult.

Chris Reichhelm:

Yes.

David Kingham:

So.

Chris Reichhelm:

Now, if I may, let me ask a question. Early investors who are coming in to support the development of Tokamak Energy, and we've talked about how, uh, it, it, it's still, and it sounds like it had to continue being a science project in order for you to at least be able to demonstrate that the vehicle you were creating was capable of creating the conditions For sure. The type of energy you're trying to generate. And so, uh, but were they, how does that work from, you know, your perspective as a company trying to generate investment to keep yourselves going, knowing that there's no immediate prospect of commercial activity?

David Kingham:

Yeah, the a hundred million degree target was really agreed with the, with the shareholders, with the investors, um, as being. Necessary, but perhaps not sufficient to take us all the way to Yes. Uh, fusion energy. Commercial fusion energy. Yes. And, um, so they were very happy with, you know, that bold goal. Uh, and then what has happened in, in practice is, um, that the, the business has moved from trying to do everything itself into much more of a partnership collaboration model with government and with other private companies. Yes. So our market position now is, um, we know how to build tokamaks. We know how to build high temperature superconducting magnets. We know about plasma control systems and so forth. Those, those all work fine. Um, so we are nicely positioned to be a partner in major government funded projects. For example, in the uk in Japan, milestone driven program in the States. Yes. So we're looking for, um, alliances, collaborations to take the technology forward. Yes. We're looking in some cases for governments to be the customer. Um, yes. At development, uh, in other cases to be the co-funder. Um, so we're using shareholders funds very efficiently.

Chris Reichhelm:

Mm-hmm. Um, but at the early stage then, so up until this point, I guess it's a matter of. Targeting the right kind of investors who see the world in a slightly different way, who I'm guessing, for lack of a better term, are just the most extraordinarily long sighted investors who believe in the, in the, in the potential impact of what you, of what can be created directly and indirectly. Sure. Is that a fair assessment?

David Kingham:

Yeah, I think that's e exactly right. That our early investors, um, liked the scientific argument, the spherical Tokamak being very efficient, and they love the properties, the fundamental properties of the high temperature superconductor. Uh, I mean, it's a material that delivers, uh, huge current densities, uh, even in a strong magnetic field. Even at relatively high temperatures, like 20 degrees above absolute zero. Um, so our investors could easily see the potential, even if, you know, the business model might need to change over time. Uh, yes. To get the whole, get the whole job done. Yes. Um, yeah. So, and of course you

Chris Reichhelm:

were the CEO from the early days. Yeah. And you mentioned 2015 you hurt your, you, you achieved, uh, another significant milestone and that thereafter you, it was still a science project, but with the raising of an additional 15 million pounds, uh, you could move forward in a, in a, in a way with clear targets, even on some of those future technical milestones. At what point, David, did you feel that it was time to hand over the reins to a new CEO?

David Kingham:

Right. So, um, this was about 2017. Um, our a hundred million degree. Uh, target was still a bit out of reach. Um, but we had achieved an intermediate target of 15 million degree plasma temperature. Um, which is not insignificant achievement. It's hotter than the center of the sun. Um, but we realized there was some serious engineering to do to, um, really get through a a and some clever physics to be done to, yes, to get through to a hundred million degrees. Um, so we did several things there. Um, it was pretty clear we needed stronger engineering leadership. I'm really a theoretical physicist by training, so it's time for me to step, uh, into a support more of a supporting role. Um, get an engineering chief executive in. Um, then, uh, we also established a collaboration with Princeton and Oak Ridge National Labs in the states funded by US Department of Energy, um, so that they could help us with some of the plasma physics, um, that would help us get to this a hundred million degrees. Um, and, uh, we got there in, well, we announced it in 2022. Um, looking back on the data, we, we were there or thereabout in 2021. Um, so, but we wanted to, with that 100

Chris Reichhelm:

million degree target

David Kingham:

with a hundred million degree. Target achieved and achieved. Um, now it would be easy to claim and easy to not measure things perfectly. Mm-hmm. Um, so we really wanted to be absolutely sure that the measurements were robust, repeatable, peer reviewable backed up by colleagues at, um, Princeton and Oak Ridge who know about measuring these plasma temperatures. Yes. Um, so we, we certainly wanted to go right at the No, a maximum scientific proof point, uh, end of things. Yes.

Chris Reichhelm:

Yes. Gearing up even, I mean, getting to 15 million degrees is, uh, is one thing. Getting to a hundred is another thing. These are incredible engineering challenges. Um, how, can you talk a little bit about how you guys approach that from a, you know, a, a capability standpoint? Where did you know, where did the talent come from? How are things organized? There are lots of our listeners who are, who, who, who are also wrestling, who with, with, with huge engineering challenges and thinking about the, that which is required to galvanize motivate and at the end of the day, get the results that are required in order for you to hit the milestone. What kind of lessons did you learn from that whole experience? Um, well one,

David Kingham:

the way we worked was sort of was incremental. Um, you know, we weren't. We had incremental milestones. Uh, I mean we had the 15 million degree and a hundred million degree milestone and, and the increasing magnetic field strength milestones in, um, with the superconducting magnets. Um, but the, the team evolved, um, and, and the sense of it was very different from a sort of big scale government led program, which tends to start with, um, specification requirement, and then recruiting a large team to deliver. So a rapid scale up of people and then progress towards the project. We were, we were much more, um, we'll only recruit more people if we achieve the previous milestone. And so learn as you go on, on the scale up. Now that may not be the fastest way of getting there. Um, and it, but, but it has the advantage that if something doesn't work out quite as expected, you're not over committ to pursuing it. So you, in a lot of, um, publicly funded programs, you have the big risk of, um, sunk cost argument. You know, we spent 30 million pounds on this, we have to proceed. Yes, yes. Now, we never got into any, any of that sort of thinking. Uh, some of our very early shareholders said, never take a decision to push on if the evidence doesn't support it. Um, yes. And so we cut. You know, we cut a few things, learn fast, forced ourselves to do things with relatively modest resources. Uh, and then, and, and, and the other thing we were trying to do with the magnets in particular was to achieve the highest possible field strength in the smallest possible magnet. So you're using materials as efficiently as possible. Okay. And you're really, you're not physically physical size. Scale up can come later. Once you're satisfied, you can handle the engineering once you get through

Chris Reichhelm:

the prototypes, successful prototypes for the thing that you are. So, so if I'm hearing correctly, one of the things that may be, and it's interesting, the, the piece around resource constraint around not growing too quickly. But making sure that, for want of a better phrase, you've ma you've mastered the lesson that the challenge is trying to teach, if you will, and that you can represent that in a, uh, you know, at the TRL four five stage where you're developing your prototypes. Uh, don't worry about the size of the prototype. Uh, at that stage can you actually try to do what you're trying to do. So if I'm hearing correctly, almost stay small. Don't worry about trying to scale so fast. Stay small until you've got it, and then you can worry about the challenges associated with scaling later on. Yeah. Would that be a fair summary?

David Kingham:

Yeah.

Chris Reichhelm:

Summary. I think that's, that's a fair summary. Yeah. Of course. While you're doing this, you are trying to file patents on Yeah. Uh, all sorts of innovations you come up with. Some of which are driven by trying to do things in as compact, a small, uh, manner as possible. Yes. Um, you are also building your supply chain relationships. Absolutely.

David Kingham:

Um, learning that in the high temperature superconducting world, there are many manufacturers of the basic material and then very few people who know how to turn that material into powerful magnets, uh, robust, powerful magnets. Um, so we had, we used quite a few different suppliers, um, and learn how some of the different, some manufacturers produce better types than others, um, or different properties, um, you know, different manufacturing techniques. We use different costs from various manufacturers. And here we are making lots of little magnets and learning quickly how to use everybody's material. We're also developing, um, sophisticated modeling software. So, you know, you build a small prototype, you measure everything you can, uh, and then you build your numerical models, your software and simulation, so you really understand how these small magnets work. And then you can, with confidence design a bigger magnet and a more powerful magnet. And then you test that. And if, if that works as intended, you'll get more confident in your, in your modeling and simulation.

Chris Reichhelm:

So that, how, how, how reliable are the models? Or if you are continuing to experiment at. These smaller scales, how much is scale a factor in the realization of what you're ultimately trying to achieve? You know, how much more do you have to account for scale when it's finally time to, you know, is it's, it's always more than just a matter of, well, we'll just here are scale up ratios and there you go.

David Kingham:

Yeah, sure. Because manufacturing techniques have to change as you scale up. Sure. Yeah. Um, so we started off winding superconducting magnets as a, as a spiral of tape, um, uh, and circular section. Uh, and that's relatively easy to do, uh, and we've got more and more efficient at that. Um, then you need to think of larger scale and then different shapes, because some of the coils in the Tokamak have to be more or less a D shape rather than a circular, uh, shape. And that creates additional manufacturing challenges. Um, so you are trying to work out the manufacturing challenges at the same time as developing the software and simulation. So you can predict how the magnet should work. You build one test it, did it work as intended? If not, well, you know what, what's happened is our modeling software not quite right. Is the manufacturing technique not quite right? Yeah. Did the manufacturer supply us? You know, did we misunderstand the spec of the tape? All of these challenges need to be dealt with.

Chris Reichhelm:

And are these things you're actually just learning on the job learning as you are understanding how to build these?

David Kingham:

Uh, yeah, there's a lot of that. Yeah. Uh, and you're trying to build your knowledge base so that Yeah. You've got a substantial knowledge base as possible, and then you are doing rapid incremental innovation on top of that to,

Chris Reichhelm:

uh, scale

David Kingham:

up. And how does

Chris Reichhelm:

this approach this, you know, this, you know, because you're building something that hasn't been built before. You're building something that's new. You're trying to create something that's never existed. How did this impact your hiring decisions?

David Kingham:

Um, yeah, the,

Chris Reichhelm:

I mean, there are, because it's not like you can say, well, we're looking for people with experience of building spherical tokamak of innovation. No, exactly. Exactly. So, so did it impact your hiring and if so, how?

David Kingham:

Well it did, because in the Oxford area, you have some mature superconducting magnet businesses. Um, Oxford Instruments themselves have made high performance. Scientific instruments from, um, low temperature superconductors for many decade, decades. Um, Siemens, um, magnet technology, magnetic resonance imaging business, they make, uh, 40% of the world's MRI magnets, uh, in oxygen. Now, the people working in those programs are working on not quite repeating routine, but it, it is manufacturing discipline, uh, not too much innovation, very structured, uh, approaches. And, and in MRI, obviously regulatory, regulatory controlled, um, challenges. Um, so some engineers like that, the ones who don't. Are the sort of ones who joined our team to try new materials, to be in a more of a skunk work sort of approach to seeing how far you can go with this new material. Yes,

Chris Reichhelm:

yes. And is there any advice you have for filtering out those skunk works lovers, those, you know, those highly entrepreneurial Heath Robinson types?

David Kingham:

Yeah. Um, well this, they, they tend to, they, they tend to cluster in particular parts of the world. No, they, they need Now Oxfordshire is also great for motor sport engineering Formula One teams, and that again is there's a certain culture of people who love, the, the petrol head love tinkering with the cars and trying to get them to go faster whilst remaining reliable. And we've got something of the similar ethos in the superconducting magnet area that, um, you need to design things. They have to be bold, they have to work,

Chris Reichhelm:

they have to be precise. Yeah. You know, that love of precision and performance and safety has to be in there too, but Yeah.

David Kingham:

Yeah. And then no, we, we, we then have challenges of scaling up of magnets. So the, the way in which you safely control a small magnet, um, so that it can't burn out if there's a loss of superconductivity, a quench, um, is it turns out to be very different or requiring very different approaches and materials. To go to a large magnet where the stored energy in the system is much greater and the risk of breaking your whole magnet system with a loss of superconductivity is, is yes. Now is a big challenge. Yes. So you, you have to be able to cope with that scale up. Um, yes. Challenge. Yes.

Chris Reichhelm:

And, and David, bring us up to today. So the, you know, the journey you've been on, you've just wonderfully articulated and summarized for us. Where is Tokamak energy today? What does it want to be when it grows up?

David Kingham:

Um, we, we really, on, on the fusion side, we want to be at the heart of major projects aimed delivering fusion energy. Um, and we expect these projects to be backed by governments around the world. Um. It's a great project called Step in the uk, where we're in prime position to be the engineering partner or part part of the engineering partnership team to deliver that. Um, we're engaged in the US milestone driven fusion development program. Um, and we're in dialogue for a project in Japan, which would deliver, um, well potentially fusion electricity, uh, in the 2030s, mid 2030s. If, uh, if things go well, we're expecting Japanese government announcements on that fairly soon. Um, so yeah. Um, and we know that in Europe there's also growing enthusiasm for fusion. Some very positive announcements in Germany. Yes. Um. You know, new government, uh, going very profusion, uh, which is interesting for Germany, given the challenges, given it history. Yeah. They've had, um, the vision mission, um, yeah. Uh, and, and then the European Commission also, um, not wanting to be outdone by one, one of its member nations is, is looking at public-private partnership approach infusion. Mm-hmm. So, so it's

Chris Reichhelm:

about establishing itself kind of at the core of the entire value chain. Yep. And is this, with the view of supplying services, engineering services, at some stage, does Tokamak Energy become a product company? Is it going to become a, you know, a hey, we now supply Spherical Tokamak? Or do we partner up with a, I dunno, with Siemens and ABB and, and however many years, and they'll supply the Tokamak, but we provide the expertise and the support. Yeah. You know, what exactly will it do or will it do all of those things potentially?

David Kingham:

Um, well, we shall see, but, um, we were very fortunate, um, a couple of years ago to get to Warren East to join our board. Now, Warren was previously, um, chief executive of Rolls Royce, but prior to that he was Chief Executive of Arm Holdings, which has successfully embedded its intellectual property in most of the world's advanced microprocessors. Mm-hmm. Now that when he joined, he said he wants to see Tokamak Energy become the arm of Fusion to own crucial intellectual property in all future Fusion devices around the world. So if we can achieve that sort of high valuation, relatively low capital requirement to do the development. Of course, we're partnering but embedding our technology. Um, software know-how systems may be high value components as well within, uh, many devices. Um, you know, fusion can take a few more years to develop. Um, what won't change is humankind will continue to pursue fusion because it is so exciting and so important and will inevitably be the dominant source of energy in the 22nd century. Just be good to get it sooner than that.

Chris Reichhelm:

Do you think the world will allow it? Do you think? Yes. You know, you know, you know, given how fossil fuels are so embedded in and power the geopolitical landscape, energy powers the geopolitical landscape to a certain extent. And, uh, you know, yeah. Perhaps in the 22nd century, maybe, maybe, maybe when we've, uh, but, um, but one, I guess one of the questions I, or the things I worry about, if we were to create fusion, would the world allow us to use it?

David Kingham:

Oh, I, I, I think so, because it's inherently safe. Um, there's plentiful fuel. Um, it doesn't require huge amounts of land. Um, there are proliferation risks very, very low compared to fish and Sure. Um, so, but, but I think what will drive fusion development is it's a bit of geopolitics. The, um, particularly between the US and China. Yes. Um, the US will not wanna be left behind and the new energy secretary has, you know, made that clear that the US wants to be dominant in energy and in energy innovation. Yes. So we take that to be very positive. And of course Europe won't want to get left out either. We're seeing that reaction quite, quite strongly now. Yes.

Chris Reichhelm:

But as China continues to dominate the market for many energy technology products, right now, they have the leverage and Yeah with their form of government, which can get behind new platform technologies with all the might and capital required, and increasingly talents too. Um, they're the, uh, you know, they may be the game to beat.

David Kingham:

Yeah. We, we watch with great interest, what's what's going on in China? And it is not insignificant. And we have direct competition, um, in spherical tomax in China, perhaps strongest competition to our technology. Interesting.

Chris Reichhelm:

Interesting. The, the, um, so Tokamak Energy is now at this kind of juncture. It's moved, you know, it's, it's along with continuing its development of the spherical Tokamak. Uh, it continues to learn about and, and produce and design new tech and patent new technologies and systems and materials and work with partners to do all of this so that it can position itself at kind of the center of this emerging industry. When, when you think about the, the next phase of growth for the company. The skills it's gonna need in order to fully occupy and the its position in the value chain and play on a much more global stage. What, you know, what skills and experience and talents will you need that you don't currently have right now. And do you think you'll be able to fulfill those from the uk?

David Kingham:

Uh, yeah. So there's, there's different elements to this. I mean, one is, is our business model. Um, for example with, with the superconducting magnet side of the business, the model now is to look for large engineering companies that can basically take our technology and take it to very large markets, um, because they have the market relationship. So very recently, we've had. A huge amount of interest from Japanese engineering companies. Um, we have, um, significant investment from Furukawa Electric who own superpower, so they're manufacturers of high temperature superconducting material. Um, they have assessed very carefully our engineering design capabilities and, um, decided, uh, to make a substantial investment in the company and then to introduce us to other large Japanese companies who are, um, able to get superconducting technology into some very large opportunities. Mm-hmm. Um, so that is one part of our strategy of leverage. Mm-hmm. So we will invest in the early stage innovation up to TRL six or seven. Um, we can recruit enthusiastic magnet engineers who love the challenge of getting to that point, and then we hand over to either a joint venture manufacturing opportunity or, or a pure licensing or some other tech transfer arrangement so that a product that depends on our technology is taken to market by someone else who has the go market skills and the customer relationships. Got it. Got it. So we see that model. Um, I mean we have more than half a dozen large, large live opportunities of that type. Into quite different sectors, um, you know, propulsion systems for land, sea, air space, um, where interesting compact, relatively lightweight superconducting magnets can make a big difference. Yes. Um, difference. One of those projects is, um, a, a DARPA project on submarine propulsion. Um, it, yeah, it's in, in the public domain. Um, yes, our magnets can deliver the magnetic field strength that is required for efficient magneto hydrodynamic drive, but the technology's gonna be pretty complex to develop, so I don't think it's gonna happen anytime very soon. Yes. But

Chris Reichhelm:

in, in these situations though, then you are identifying additional applications. Yes. Or IT or additional application areas are being identified by someone. Yes, yes. Either from within to come back energy or from someone outside who then looks at what you are developing and says, oh, that's interesting. Yes. And so you have this, it's not quite the arm model because arm focused on the design or here's a blueprint, and then the designers could then go and design the chips using the ARM blueprint, and then CSMC would make 'em. And, uh, but you've got, you know, so you're designing some of it to a point and you've got a whole library of patents and so on. And then in some areas, I'm guessing over time you may go on to develop more of the technology. Or, you know, advance it to a particular stage. In other cases you may not need to do it as much, but you are then reliant on this, on these relationships with these big global partners who can help you scale and get to market.

David Kingham:

Yes. And then of course you have commercial negotiations. Is it? Yes. Non-exclusive license. Is it an exclusive license? What are the performance Yes. Criteria? Um, yes. Uh, is it split geographically and Yeah. Yes. Um, so you know, David, if I were to ask you

Chris Reichhelm:

Yes. Yeah, no, so those commercial skills, um, and strategic business development skills are, uh, are, are, are critical there. Let me take you out of Tokamak Energy for a second. You've been in the industry for a long time. Certainly been very active in the science community for, for a very long time. If you were to look at the uk, and we talk a lot on this program, and it's talked a lot generally about the failure of our country to get of the uk to get more, uh, companies through the lab to market journey through true TL nine and in the market, and if they're manufacturing stuff, MRL 10 and actually becoming proper, you know, proper businesses. If you think about that more broadly across the uk, is the model that you are developing is that, you know, you know, could that become a blueprint for other companies, do you think, and do you think there are other things we could be doing as, you know, within the UK to get more of these, more of these enterprises to market?

David Kingham:

I, I certainly think there's more that could be done in the UK to get the sort of IP intensive early stage in innovation companies to market. I think. The UK is naturally good at the early stage innovation and tends to not be so good when it comes to large scale manufacturing. Um, and yeah, I trying to be good at large scale manufacturing, for example, of batteries, you know, doesn't seem, I don't think we're likely to succeed in that. Hmm. Yeah. There, you know, there are too many other countries who are better placed. Um, but if it's more of a niche, um, like superconducting magnets, you know, the UK is a world leader in high field superconducting magnets, um, you know, with, with ourselves now and Oxford Instrument, Siemens and Yeah. And others. Um, it that. Feels like a, a much more likely to succeed strategy than chasing something, than reshoring

Chris Reichhelm:

and chasing a whole bunch of manufacturing. Yeah. I

David Kingham:

mean, some of that of course, but of course. Yeah.

Chris Reichhelm:

Yeah.

David Kingham:

But, but the, the arm model that, the high intellectual property model, the radical innovation, um, and then partnering, I think it's a nice way to go

Chris Reichhelm:

and perhaps the skill, because let's not forget the, the lessons learned from manufacturing and scaling are significant. Uh, they've enabled, I think, China to start developing their own ip. And to, you know, and to, and, and to, uh, um, and, and they enabled Japan and Korea and Taiwan and so on to become real innovators. So beyond just the manufacturing piece, it, you know, all of that expertise they gained ultimately allowed them to become innovators too. Yes. And so it's a, uh, but maybe to the point, um, by having those close partnerships with groups that can, are, are, you know, are, are capable of delivering things at scale and then taking the lessons, making sure that the executives or the talent in our businesses is taking the lessons from their interactions and bringing some of that home so that we're able to capture that ourselves to, you know, very often we see interesting platform technologies which may look good at, at the bench, uh, or in theory, but aren't ultimately scalable for one reason or another. And there's almost a sense that well, had we. Had we been more of a mindset to think about the scaling challenges upfront, we may not have gone down this line. And so, uh, and so a balance still has to be struck there. Yes. It sounds like Yeah. Or closer relationships with manufacturers, uh, and OEMs

David Kingham:

and, yeah. I mean, one of the things that has surprised us over the last couple of years is the number of new applications of the high temperature superconductors that we've become aware of. Um, and that often through dialogue with supply chain and then sort of coming across, um, p people. Yeah. Finding out that you have a potential solution to somebody's problem. Yeah. Um, so the mo most recent of those is. The possibility of using superconductors in data centers. So data centers are increasingly power hungry. The power density of the data centers is gonna increase dramatically with the latest NVIDIA chips. Um, so you know, they're gonna go up towards one megawatt, um, per rack, um, from a hundred hundred and 30 kilowatts or whatever it is at the moment. Oh wow. So this is, um, astonishing power requirements. And to get the power to the, to the chip, you need buzz bars. At the moment they use copper and aluminum and these buzz bars are getting big. Um, so they're occupying a significant amount of space within the data center, and they're generating huge amounts of heat. Hmm. Um, so on the other hand, they're conventional and routine easy technologies, but the point is gonna come where it's worth having a high temperature superconducting buzz bar in these data centers because it will deliver five times the amount of power in the same footprint as copper. Um, and yeah, even more so. That's fascinating.

Chris Reichhelm:

Are you, are you guys scouting out these applications or are, are, you know, is the demand side approaching you or is it a mix of both?

David Kingham:

It's a mix. Yeah. It's a mix. Um, it's things we've become aware of. Yeah. Um, and then, um, you start, you start to investigate in more detail and, and then you find there's a debate in the industry, are we gonna go to superconductors? In the next generation, or is it five or 10 years down the track? Yes. Um, and then you get some, some of the, so I mean, we couldn't go to market directly with a technology like that. We'd have to partner with an engineering player who's already supplying into that industry. Yes. Um, so some of those are very cautious, um, and very slow moving. Others, uh, are open to innovations Yes. That might come through to market in two or three years. Yes. So,

Chris Reichhelm:

yes. Okay. David, one final question for you. When do you think we're gonna have nuclear fusion reactors actually producing nuclear fusion?

David Kingham:

Uh, well, our, our ST 40 does nuclear fusion now every day, or, you know, most days. Um, but it takes a lot more energy into it than it outputs. Yes. If you're looking at electricity generation Yes. Then I think 20 35, 20 34, 20 35. Okay. For electricity generation at meaningful scale. Um, and I'd point to the US Milestone Driven Fusion development program and possibly a new Japanese program that might aim realistically at that, uh, timeframe.

Chris Reichhelm:

So within 10 years.

David Kingham:

Yep.

Chris Reichhelm:

Right. Well that's exciting

David Kingham:

from Fusion.

Chris Reichhelm:

Yeah. That's very exciting. David, I've loved having you. Thank you so much for joining me today. It's been, uh, it's been great. I'm sure our listeners are gonna love it.

David Kingham:

Uh, thank you, Chris. I enjoyed it as well. Thank you very much for the questions. There's some challenging questions in there. Excellent.

Chris Reichhelm:

You've been listening to the Lab to Market Leadership Podcast, brought to you by Deep Tech Leaders. This podcast has been produced by Beauxhaus. You can find out more about us on LinkedIn, Spotify, apple, or wherever you get your podcasts.

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