I was not aware of so many initiatives in parallel to seek to master the energy of nuclear fusion. Beyond the international collaboration around ITER in the south of France there are also large investments made in China and through a private company in California, TAE technologies (here a Wikipedia article on TAE technologies).
This last initiative is very interesting in its form: it is the only such endeavors that I know of that is entirely private and in the form of a start-up financed by venture capitalists and large corporations from the internet industry.
The fact that such fundamental science can be financed entirely by private funds is quite new. Of course it may have industrial applications some day, but previously the standard institutional setup was that fundamental science and associated large scientific instruments would be financed publicly, and that private funds would only take over once the science would be sufficiently advanced to get to practical applications in a reasonable time-frame and with a reasonable probability.
This exceptional example shows that private companies have very deep pockets to be able to fund such fundamental science (and that they dream of being able to exploit such technology in a monopolistic manner!). And also that the industrial age public research institutions will need to reconfigure in the Collaborative Age, since the border between fundamental and applied science is definitely shifting.
