CATL Again Leads New Funding Round for Beta Fusion

On July 31, CATL continued to lead a new funding round for fusion frontier technology company Beta Fusion with an investment of several hundred million yuan. Corporate information query platforms showed that relevant details of Beta Fusion's latest funding round had been updated that day. This marks CATL's renewed commitment to the company following its lead investment of several hundred million yuan in Beta Fusion's seed round in early June this year.

Beta Fusion (Beijing) Energy Technology Co., Ltd. was established in late 2025 with a registered capital of 1 million yuan, focusing primarily on the pulsed field-reversed configuration (FRC) magneto-inertial confinement route to explore commercialization pathways for controlled nuclear fusion. The company's founder, Cao Zhiping, is a young researcher who was among the earliest in China to pursue pulsed FRC route research and drive its commercialization. Public information shows that he previously participated in the preparation and technical feasibility assessment of related commercialization ventures, with his work spanning device design, physics theory, and experimental operations.

According to disclosures from Beta Fusion, its core team members come from domestic and international fusion research institutions, including the Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ASIPP), the ITER Organization, and the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics in Germany, with research areas covering divertor engineering, magnetic confinement fusion theory, plasma numerical simulation, and diagnostics. The company stated that its team possesses full-chain technical capabilities from theoretical research to engineering development and implementation.

Pulsed field-reversed configuration magneto-inertial confinement is one of the technical routes for magnetic confinement nuclear fusion. Unlike routes such as tokamaks that pursue long-pulse or steady-state operation, the FRC route primarily enhances plasma density through rapid magnetic compression and operates in a pulsed manner, with relatively simplified device structures and potentially shorter R&D iteration cycles.

According to previously disclosed plans by Beta Fusion, the company aims to advance 50-100 MW grid-connected power generation within approximately 6 to 8 years. Its potential future application scenarios include distributed energy sectors such as AI data centers and smart cities.