Fujikura Adds ¥5.6 Billion to Expand Superconductor Wire Output
Fujikura has committed a further ¥5.6 billion to expand its production of high-temperature superconductor wire, the material used to wind fusion reactor magnets. The investment builds on about ¥6.0 billion spent the year before and is expected to lift the company’s output to several times its earlier level. Fujikura names fusion energy as the demand behind the build-out.
Fusion magnet demand is driving the expansion
On 9 February 2026, Fujikura announced an additional ¥5.6 billion investment in facilities to expand its production of high-temperature superconductor (HTS) wire. The company ties the decision directly to fusion, saying demand is expected to grow in line with advances in fusion energy development, because HTS wire is essential for the superconducting magnets used to confine plasma in a fusion reactor.
That framing reflects a wider shift in the industry. For most of its history, HTS wire was a niche material sold in small quantities for research magnets and a handful of grid demonstrations. Compact fusion developers now need it by the thousands of kilometres per machine, which has turned a specialist product into a supply-chain bottleneck and pushed the major producers to scale up.
The new spending roughly doubles capacity again
The ¥5.6 billion follows the roughly ¥6.0 billion Fujikura invested in expansion during fiscal 2024. Taken together, the company expects to raise HTS production capacity to three to four times its previous level by fiscal 2027, with the latest tranche adding a further doubling on top of that.
What Fujikura actually makes
Fujikura produces rare-earth barium copper oxide (REBCO) coated conductor, the second-generation HTS wire covered in our materials guide and manufacturing explainer. REBCO carries very high currents in strong magnetic fields when cooled to around 20 kelvin (−253 °C, −424 °F), which is what makes it suitable for the high-field magnets fusion companies are building.
Fujikura is already a named supplier to several fusion programmes, including Commonwealth Fusion Systems in the United States, and this expansion is aimed at keeping pace with those orders as they move from prototype to pilot-plant scale. For how far fusion demand outruns current tape supply, see where the tape goes.