Fujikura and Furukawa Electric Both Take Equity in Japan's FAST Fusion Developer
Two competing suppliers of high-temperature superconductor (HTS) tape have taken equity in the same fusion developer. Fujikura invested in Starlight Engine Ltd., the company advancing Japan’s FAST tokamak project, and Furukawa Electric underwrote a portion of the same capital increase, a round that raised JPY 6.06 billion, about USD 37.4 million. Both framed the move around their standing as fusion wire suppliers rather than as a financial position.
Two rival tape makers backed the same fusion developer
Fujikura said on 15 July 2026 that it had invested in Starlight Engine, the company advancing the FAST (Fusion by Advanced Superconducting Tokamak) Project. Furukawa Electric announced the same day that it had entered a share subscription agreement in the same round. Neither company disclosed how much it put in.
The two are direct competitors in rare-earth barium copper oxide (REBCO) tape. Fujikura, based in Tokyo, makes REBCO by pulsed laser deposition and committed a further 5.6 billion yen to HTS capacity in February 2026. Furukawa Electric owns SuperPower Inc. of Glenville, New York, a producer of second-generation REBCO coated conductor and a wholly owned subsidiary since 2012.
Both suppliers framed the stake around fusion wire supply
Furukawa Electric said that it and SuperPower “will also further solidify their position as global leaders in the supply of high-temperature superconducting wire for fusion power generation”. Fujikura said it has worked on HTS for more than 30 years and supplies fusion energy development projects in Japan, the United States and Europe. Neither release announced a wire supply contract with Starlight Engine.
Fujikura has taken this route before, investing in Commonwealth Fusion Systems in September 2025 and signing a framework agreement to supply HTS wire for the UK STEP plant in May 2025. Wire makers buying into their own customers is becoming a recurring pattern across the fusion projects we track.
The round raised JPY 6.06 billion for design work and hiring
The financing was Starlight Engine’s first external round. Global Brain Corporation led it, joined by 17 new investors drawn from power utilities, construction, real estate, telecommunications, finance, materials manufacturing and venture capital. Starlight Engine says the proceeds go to engineering design and technology development, to joint research and strategic partnerships, and to recruitment.
The company was established in April 2025 and handles technology development, business development, fundraising, site selection and supply chain construction for FAST, a private-sector-led industry-academia collaboration aiming to demonstrate power generation using fusion energy in the 2030s. It put a new executive structure in place in April 2026 and plans to grow to around 200 employees over the next two years.
HTS tape sets how small the machine can be
A tokamak confines fusion plasma in a doughnut-shaped chamber using magnetic fields. HTS tape carries current at higher magnetic fields than the low-temperature superconductors used in earlier machines, so a given confining field can be reached in a smaller device. FAST is designed to use HTS coils.
That places both investors in the supply chain for the machine they now part-own. The manufacturing route behind the tape is set out in our explainer on how HTS tape is made, and fusion is one of several markets for it, covered in where superconductors are used.