Private vs Public Fusion

Public programs pursue fusion as large-scale science; private companies pursue it as a compact, manufacturable product. Kronos is private — and builds on decades of public research.

Public

Large science facilities (e.g. ITER); slower, foundational

Private

Compact, product-focused, faster iteration

Kronos

Private; builds on public physics

Relationship

Complementary

Fusion research runs on two tracks. Public programs — national labs and international projects like ITER — pursue fusion as foundational science at large scale, producing the physics and databases the whole field relies on. Private companies pursue it as a compact, manufacturable product, moving faster and taking on commercial risk.

They're complementary, not opposed: Kronos explicitly builds on public results — negative-triangularity data from DIII-D, the Super-X divertor from MAST-U, decades of tokamak physics — and adds compact-fusion engineering and openness. See how Kronos compares to ITER.