US fusion company TAE Technologies has announced a bilateral and reciprocal investment commitment with the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA) to commercialise TAE’s proprietary particle accelerator technology for the global market.
A new joint venture, TAE Beam UK, will harness the partners’ collective scientific leadership, commercialisation experience and market innovation to develop this highly versatile advanced particle accelerator technology, beginning with neutral beams for fusion. The venture aims to design, develop, and ultimately manufacture and service neutral beams for a wide range of fusion approaches, as well as adapt the accelerator technology for state-of-the-art cancer therapeutics, and other applications such as food safety and homeland security.
TAE is an industry leader in neutral beams, which are critical for commercial fusion. For a fusion machine to produce electricity, it must keep plasma steadily confined at fusion-relevant conditions. On TAE’s current fusion machine, eight powerful neutral beams are placed at precise angles to meet those requirements. Inside each neutral beam canister, protons are accelerated and then combined with electrons to create a stream of neutral, high-energy hydrogen atoms (the ‘neutral beam’).
Because the particles have no charge, they can bypass the fusion reactor’s magnetic field to provide heating, current drive and plasma stability. TAE is the first to use neutral beams for both Field-Reversed Configuration (FRC) plasma formation and high-quality plasma sustainment – resulting in a streamlined design that is smaller, more efficient and more cost-effective.
TAE Beam UK will operate out of UKAEA’s Culham Campus, in Oxfordshire, establishing the UK as a global hub for this vital fusion technology while boosting the economy with high-skilled job creation. TAE already has additional facilities in the UK; its power management subsidiary, TAE Power Solutions, is based in the West Midlands – and TAE Beam UK will leverage TAE’s considerable and growing role within the UK.
UKAEA CEO Tim Bestwick, CEO said: “UKAEA is very much looking forward to working in partnership with TAE Technologies on developing neutral beams and commercialising this exciting technology, bringing jobs and growth to the UK. They have shown the way as a global leader in applying fusion technologies to other markets, and TAE Beam UK will join TAE Life Sciences and TAE Power Solutions as great examples of this innovation in action.”
UKAEA plans to make an equity investment of £5.6m ($7.4m) in this new venture, including engaging some of the world’s best scientists to work on this technology and leverage expertise built up over decades of operating the Joint European Torus (JET). TAE Beam UK is backstopped by TAE’s own investment in the technology. The project aims to deliver the first short-pulse beams within 18-24 months of the start of work subject to customary regulatory approvals.
“The UK has long been at the forefront of fusion innovation, and we’re proud to deepen our partnership with UKAEA,” said TAE Technologies CEO Michl Binderbauer. “The UK’s world-class scientific talent and unwavering commitment to commercialising fusion energy make the country an ideal partner as we scale neutral beam technology from lab to market. Together, we’re building critical infrastructure for the fusion supply chain and ensuring that the US-UK partnership can together remain central to the fusion economy of the future.”
TAE’s Norm machine – the first to produce FRC plasmas with only neutral beam injection – has performed beyond expectations, leapfrogging a planned sixth device, Copernicus. The announcement was published in November as part of the 2025 annual meeting of the APS Division of Plasma Physics.
“What we realised with continued experimentation is that Norm’s performance is putting us exactly where we want to be to begin development of our commercial power plant,” said Binderbauer. “Our sixth-generation machine, Copernicus, had been part of our roadmap since TAE’s beginning, but Norm is such a tremendous breakthrough that it renders Copernicus unnecessary – saving us considerable time and cost. We’re thrilled with the momentum Norm’s success has brought to TAE’s cleanest, safest approach to fusion.”
