Marvel Fusion Colorado partnership adds Siemens backing

The agreement links Colorado’s RISE Hub to Bavaria’s VEGA Hub, giving both fusion ecosystems a formal channel for the industrial and supply chain partnerships that follow

(Image courtesy of Marvel Fusion)

Marvel Fusion, the State of Colorado, and Siemens Energy have signed a Letter of Intent to formalise a transatlantic collaboration on laser-driven fusion energy, extending an industrial relationship in which Siemens Energy already holds an equity stake and is jointly designing a conceptual fusion power plant with the German developer. For Fusion Future readers, the agreement sets a defined 12-month timeline for the three parties to move from framework to first projects.

What the Marvel Fusion Colorado partnership actually commits to

The LOI sets out four areas of collaboration: joint research and development programmes, including access to fusion research facilities; strengthened connections between Colorado’s RISE Hub and Bavaria’s VEGA Hub ecosystem; transatlantic industrial and supply chain partnerships; and talent development. Over the coming year, the parties will establish a joint working group to define priority projects, alongside delegation visits, expert workshops and initial cooperation activities. This gives the collaboration a defined first phase, with the broader commercialisation goal building from there.

The agreement was signed on June 9 at Marvel Fusion’s Munich headquarters, in the presence of Colorado Governor Jared Polis and Markus Blume, Bavarian State Minister for Science and Arts, as part of a broader Bavaria-Colorado cooperation agreement signed the same day. Colorado’s governor’s office has since referenced the LOI as a reference point for the state’s wider fusion strategy, including its recent Colorado Fusion Week convening of sector companies and research institutions.

Supply chain and procurement context for the Marvel Fusion Colorado partnership

The RISE Hub side of the agreement is not a new initiative. It is a Department of Energy-funded, CSU and SLAC-led hub receiving sixteen million dollars over four years, with Marvel Fusion already named as one of three industry partners alongside Xcimer Energy and General Atomics. Linking RISE to Bavaria’s VEGA Hub gives the arrangement a concrete piece of infrastructure to anchor against, CSU’s ATLAS Facility, which Cassandra Moseley, the university’s vice president for research, described in the release as opening in 2027. CSU’s own project communications put substantial completion in December 2026, with a three-laser, multi-petawatt configuration developed under a 150 million dollar public-private partnership with Marvel Fusion.

Siemens Energy’s involvement is not a fresh entry into fusion. The company took a minority equity position in Marvel Fusion during a 2025 funding round and has since been working with the developer on the overall concept for a fusion power plant. Kathleen O’Brien, Siemens Energy’s senior vice president, said the successful commercialisation of fusion energy requires industrial and energy-sector capabilities as well as scientific breakthroughs, and that Siemens Energy is joining the initiative to help build the partnerships needed to accelerate development and deployment.

Marvel Fusion COO Heike Freund tied the agreement directly to the CSU relationship, describing it as building on a technology validation platform developed through that partnership. The company’s approach is based on femtosecond laser pulses directed at nanostructured fuel targets and depends on scaling laser production, an area the LOI’s industrial and supply chain language speaks to directly.

The next twelve months will show which projects the joint working group brings forward first. With ATLAS approaching substantial completion and the RISE-VEGA Hub link now formalised at government level, the clearest signal for the sector will be which supply chain partnerships the working group prioritises, and how quickly Siemens Energy’s design work translates into procurement activity ahead of ATLAS becoming operational.

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