Helical Fusion wins Tokyo government backing to develop liquid metal blanket technology for commercial fusion plants

Helical Fusion’s liquid metal blanket concept illustrates the flowing-wall technology now backed by up to JPY 1 billion from Tokyo’s Zero Emission Innovation Program to enable commercial fusion plant viability

(Images courtesy of Helical Fusion)

What will make a fusion plant commercially viable? For Helical Fusion, the answer starts with the blanket – the component that absorbs plasma heat and converts it into usable energy. Tokyo’s selection of the company for its Zero Emission innovation programme, aimed at deep-tech decarbonisation, now brings up to JPY 1 billion in public funding to demonstrate that a liquid metal approach can help extend plant lifetime and improve operational efficiency.

Helical Fusion Co., Ltd. announced this week that the Tokyo Metropolitan Government has selected it for the FY2026 Innovation Promotion Program for Realizing Zero Emission Tokyo. The programme supports Tokyo-based startups and small and medium-sized enterprises pursuing commercialisation through open innovation with industry and academic partners. Selected projects can receive up to JPY 1 billion over three years.

A moving wall where no standard yet exists

The funded project, titled “A Novel Liquid Metal Wall to Extend the Lifetime of Fusion Power Plants,” targets a problem that has no established global solution. Inside a fusion device, the blanket faces the plasma directly, absorbing intense heat loads that must be removed continuously without damaging surrounding components. Solid-material blanket designs struggle with this over sustained operational periods.

Helical Fusion’s concept replaces the static wall with a flowing liquid metal surface. The company expects this moving-wall approach to improve heat removal, simplify maintenance, and extend plant availability compared to conventional designs. The project will also verify maintenance procedures for surrounding blanket systems – work the company considers essential to the economic viability of future commercial plants.

Japan’s industrial base as a force multiplier

Helical Fusion will carry out the programme in collaboration with Japanese manufacturers and universities, combining expertise across materials, mechanical systems, and heat management. The structure reflects a deliberate industrial strategy: fusion commercialisation requires advanced manufacturing and plant systems engineering alongside scientific progress, and Japan’s existing industrial strengths give the project a credible delivery path.

Tokyo’s decision to back the project under its Zero Emission category also signals something beyond individual company support. Public policy is starting to treat fusion hardware development as a legitimate decarbonisation tool, not a distant research prospect.

Helical Fusion’s Helix KANATA stellarator concept render showcases the helical plasma confinement geometry targeted for first-of-a-kind commercial fusion power generation in the 2030s, with the Tokyo-funded liquid metal blanket integrated into its design

The helix program and the road to the 2030s

Founded in 2021 from research originating at Japan’s National Institute for Fusion Science, Helical Fusion is developing a helical stellarator under its Helix Program. The roadmap targets standalone demonstrations of high-temperature superconducting magnets and the blanket-divertor system during the 2020s. Integrated demonstration follows with Helix HARUKA, before first-of-a-kind power generation with Helix KANATA in the 2030s.

The blanket work now funded through Tokyo sits at the foundation of that sequence. Continuous operation, net electricity output, and maintainability are the three requirements Helical Fusion defines as essential for commercial readiness. This programme moves the least-solved of the three meaningfully forward.

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