Gauss Fusion, the European Greentech company founded to build the continent’s first commercial fusion power plant, has unveiled its Conceptual Design Report (CDR).
The CDR presents a comprehensive conceptual blueprint for the development of its fusion power plant, GIGA, and sets out how fusion can move from scientific research to commercial reality.
The CDR was presented just days after the German Government announced its €2bn Fusion Action Plan. This Action Plan was based on Chancellor Friedrich Merz’s coalition agreement in May 2025, outlining his government’s ambition for Germany to build the world’s first fusion power plant.
Gauss Fusion’s work – combining an industrialisation roadmap and a comprehensive technical design alongside the CDR – will be shared with the Federal Government within the next ten days and places the company at the centre of Europe’s race to deliver fusion power.
Addressing critical systems needed to build a fusion power plant
Developed over three years with support from industrial partners from across Europe, Gauss Fusion’s CDR comprises over one thousand pages of technical detail.
The report addresses all critical systems required to build the first fusion power plant – from overall architecture, design basis and design concept, to safety framework, qualification strategy, system engineering, lifecycle operations and radioactive waste considerations, among others.
The CDR establishes a cost and schedule framework for the first commercial fusion power plant. The report defines long-term cost and schedule targets within an order-of-magnitude range, reflecting the uncertainties associated with first-of-a-kind technologies. This exercise results in €15-18bn to bring the first-of-a-kind commercial fusion reactor by the mid-2040s (2025 estimate).
From the outset, Gauss Fusion aims to implement a world-class project performance approach, following established best practices in project management, with proactive risk and opportunity management, and the use of key performance indicators to systematically improve project outcomes.
The report also crystallises Gauss Fusion’s vision of a ‘Eurofighter for Fusion’ – a pan-European programme that combines industrial know-how, national investments and supply-chain capacity to deliver energy sovereignty for Europe. This programme is structured into milestone-based phases that allow partners, shareholders, collaborators, and other stakeholders to manage programme performance systematically, reducing risk and increasing technology readiness.
Bringing together leading engineers and researchers across Europe
The project brings together leading European engineering and research partners, including those based within the following European countries:
- Italy: Working with the National Agency for New Technologies, Energy and Sustainable Economic Development (ENEA), and the Italian Consortium for Applied Superconductivity (ICAS). Partnering with SIMIC on general construction, and collaborating with ASG Superconductors, with support from Gauss Fusion’s shareholder, the Malacalza Family.
- France: Working with Alsymex, with support from Gauss Fusion’s shareholder Alcen, on manufacturing feasibility and prototype development; partnering with Assystem across systems engineering; and collaborating with CEA.
- Spain: Working with another shareholder, IDOM, on complex engineering design of the wider fuel-cycle, and targeting strategic collaboration with IFMIF-DONES.
- Germany: Working with the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), the Jülich Research Centre (FZJ), and the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP). Supported by shareholder RI Research Instruments and strategic partner Bruker EAS.
These alliances anchor Gauss Fusion’s mission to combine industrial capacity, research excellence, and supply chain expertise, thereby securing Europe’s industrial leadership in fusion. The company is developing the most comprehensive technical concept for a fusion power plant, with the support of this growing European industrial alliance.
From plasma physics to materials science: Accelerating scientific development
The CDR encompasses the entire spectrum across parallel development strands, ranging from plasma physics to grid feed-in and from materials science to lifecycle management.
Borrowing from the aerospace industry, Gauss Fusion employs concurrent engineering to accelerate design, bringing together interdisciplinary teams that work in parallel on different design processes at the same location. The advantages include significantly higher efficiency in terms of costs and project results during the early design phases.
Milena Roveda, CEO of Gauss Fusion, commented: “Our Conceptual Design Report is the culmination of three years of work to turn the promise of fusion into GIGA – a credible and practical concept-level power plant design. It demonstrates that Europe’s industry has the capabilities needed to move from vision to engineering reality.
“The CDR brings together the know-how of hundreds of specialists across Europe and proves that the technologies, materials and supply chains required for fusion are within reach.
“The next step is to advance from concept to detailed engineering — turning this design into an industrial blueprint for Europe’s first generation of fusion power plants.”
Besides partners, collaborators, and shareholders, the role of the Bundesministerium für Forschung, Technologie und Raumfahrt (BMFTR) has been critical – particularly in unlocking key enabling technologies for fusion through the implementation of public–private partnerships.
Gauss Fusion’s various collaboration schemes are set to be scaled up during the next design phase, planned to commence after the independent panel’s review of the CDR in January 2026.
