Dean's Message
The Global Fusion Race
July 2026
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The United States is in a strong position in the global race to practical fusion energy, but winning is far from guaranteed. To win, we will need a nationwide, collaborative push to solve a series of difficult shared engineering challenges holding back the promise of nearly limitless fusion energy.
I was in Washington DC this month with a group of San Diego fusion leaders from academia, industry and government. One of our core messages to congressional staff was that the global race to achieve fusion energy on the grid is an engineering race — not a science race. Scientific net energy gain from fusion has already been demonstrated. Yes, there is scientific research yet to be done; but the vast majority of remaining challenges will be solved through sustained engineering effort.
This is why both new and sustained federal funding for fusion engineering projects remain essential for winning the global fusion race.
A Hub for Fusion Materials
Here at UC San Diego, we are building a fusion engineering hub — for the benefit of the nation. We have particular clarity and special advantages in critical areas for fusion engineering, including:
- Materials synthesis, testing and characterization for fusion reactors and other components of the fusion energy supply chain. The utility of a fusion reactor depends upon sufficiently robust materials.
- Neutron capture blanket development, in collaboration with General Atomics. A neutron capture blanket converts neutron energy into usable thermal energy for power generation.
Our fusion strengths at UC San Diego are broader than this, of course, with world-class laser facilities, high-performance computing for fusion and more. To ensure the sum of our fusion efforts in research, engineering and education are far greater than the sum of the parts, we organize our efforts through the UC San Diego Fusion Engineering Institute.
Shared Infrastructure is Critical
Funding shared infrastructure that benefits researchers of all stripes across the United States is one of the traditional and vital roles for federal R&D investment.
Building out all the engineering infrastructure required to develop the right materials sets for fusion reactors, and for the broader fusion energy supply chain, is an example of a critical infrastructure need. This is a large and costly enterprise — one that no individual startup can be expected to take on alone.
With adequate federal investment and university-industry-government collaboration, a nationwide network of fusion engineering hubs will emerge.
This infrastructure will serve not just the teams already deeply engaged with fusion, but also the myriad entrepreneurs and companies that will work on the individual components of tomorrow’s commercial fusion energy plants.
This same fusion engineering infrastructure network would also expand access to test facilities for new ideas for radiation-hardened electronics and materials for hypersonic flight.
Global Competitiveness
A successful competitiveness profile for any nation must include serious attention to future energy sources. Abundant, reliable energy is essential — without it, progress stalls across every other domain. Fusion represents one of the most promising paths to the abundant, affordable clean energy that will power our nation's future.
Winning the global fusion race requires us to find new, bolder ways to work across universities, industry and government on shared infrastructure that will enable outcomes that serve society. We discussed the importance of shared infrastructure and bold collaborations at length at the Competitiveness Conversation that we just hosted at UC San Diego with the Council on Competitiveness.
This is our strategy for fusion, and we are pursuing similar approaches in many other key areas across the Jacobs School including healthcare engineering, future biomanufacturing, AI in education and emerging intelligence, and new approaches to semiconductors.
If you are interested in helping build new university-industry-government collaborations to advance our global competitiveness while improving lives, please reach out.
You can read the full July 2026 newsletter from our #9 Ranked Jacobs School of Engineering here.
As always, I can be reached at DeanPisano@ucsd.edu.
Sincerely,
Al
Albert ("Al") P. Pisano
Dean, UC San Diego Jacobs School of Engineering
Special Adviser to the Chancellor for Campus Strategic Initiatives