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U.S. fusion breakthrough could change world's energy future

On Tuesday, the head of the Department of Energy and other federal scientific leaders announced that a fusion reaction run at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California achieved net energy, meaning the reaction generated more energy than was put in to initiate the reaction. It is the first time humankind has achieved this landmark.

Fusion is the way that the sun makes power, but recreating a useful fusion reaction here on earth has eluded scientists for decades. Achieving net positive energy paves the way for fusion to move from a lab science to a usable energy source, although large scale commercialization of fusion could still be decades away.

Fusion is particularly attractive given the increasing urgency of climate change because if it can be commercialized at scale, it produces no carbon emissions, nor does it produce the long-lasting nuclear waste associated with nuclear fission, which is the type of nuclear energy used to make energy today.

The National Ignition Facility target chamber at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory is where scientists shoot lasers and watch and measure what happens when those lasers collide on a fuel source. Temperatures of 100 million degrees and pressures extreme enough to compress a target up to 100 times the density of lead are created in this facility.

Photo by Damien Jemison/ Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory

“Monday, December 5, 2022 was an important day in science,” Jill Hruby, the National Nuclear Security Administration Administrator, said at a press conference announcing the news on Tuesday in Washington D.C. “Reaching ignition in a controlled fusion experiment is an achievement that has come after more than 60 years of global research, development, engineering and experimentation.”

Reaching ignition means the fusion experiment produced more energy from fusion than the laser energy that used to drive the reaction. Since the experiment, the team has been analyzing data to be able to make this official announcement.

“This is important. Earlier results were records, but not yet producing more energy out than was put in,” Andrew Holland, the CEO of the industry’s trade group, the Fusion Industry Association, told CNBC. “For the first time on Earth, scientists have confirmed a fusion energy experiment released more power than it takes to initiate, proving the physical basis for fusion energy. This will lead fusion to be a safe and sustainable energy source in the near future.”

In the experiment on Dec. 5, about two megajoules (a unit of energy) went into the reaction and about three megajoules came out, said Marvin Adams, Deputy Administrator for Defense Programs at the National Nuclear Security Administration. “A gain of 1.5,” Adams said.

For the experiment, super high powered lasers are all directed at a very tiny fuel target at the National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. “During experiments, 192 high energy lasers converge on a target about the size of a peppercorn heating a capsule of deuterium and tritium to over 3 million degrees Celsius and briefly simulating the conditions of a star,” Hruby said.

The main mission of the National Lab is studying nuclear power for use in national defense, and this nuclear fusion research is part of an effort established in 1996 by then President Clinton to maintain confidence in the safety of nuclear weapons stockpiles without full-scale nuclear testing.

But this discovery has massive implications for clean energy, too. In addition to the national security work, “we have taken the first tentative steps towards a clean energy source that could revolutionize the world,” Hruby said.

While this scientific breakthrough that is being celebrated at the highest levels of government, it will be many years before fusion power plants are likely to provide clean abundant energy.

“This is one igniting capsule, one time. And to realize commercial fusion energy, you have to do many things. You have to be able to produce many, many fusion ignition events per minute,” Kim Budil, the director of the Lawrence Livermore Lab, said on Tuesday.

“You have to have a robust system of drivers to enable that. So, you know, probably decades. Not six decades, I don’t think. Not five decades, which is what we used to say. I think it’s moving into the foreground and probably, with concerted effort and investment, a few decades of research on the underlying technologies could put us in a position to build a power plant.”

Omar A. Hurricane, Chief Scientist for the Inertial Confinement Fusion Program at Lawrence Livermore, explained, “What remains to be done from here is largely engineering, of increasing the laser energy efficiency and increasing the target energy gain with further target optimizations.”

Hurricane added, “This new result does indeed bring commercial fusion closer, as it demonstrates that there are no fundamental physics obstacles. It is starting to feel like we are entering the ‘Fusion Age.'”

One step forward in the ‘Fusion Age’

Interest in fusion has increased dramatically in recent years as concerns about climate change and energy security have become more acute.

More than 90 nuclear power reactors currently operate in the United States, but those nuclear reactors employ nuclear fission, which is when a neutron smashes into a larger atom, causing it to split into two smaller atoms and releasing a lot of energy. Nuclear fission reactions do not release any carbon dioxide emissions and therefore are considered clean energy, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.

The United States got approximately 19 percent of its utility-scale electricity generation from those nuclear power plants in 2021, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, and the energy from nuclear fission reactors represents half of the clean power generated in the United States, according to the Department of Energy.

However, those reactors generate long-lasting nuclear radioactive waste, and most countries, including the United States, currently have no long-term storage facilities for that waste. Efforts to build a permanent, underground geologic storage facility for nuclear waste have thus far been stymied in the United States.

Fusion happens when two atoms slam together to form a heavier atom, releasing huge amounts of energy without generating carbon dioxide emissions or long-lasting nuclear waste. But it’s proven extremely challenging to sustain a fusion reaction here on earth, and scientists have been trying for decades. In particular, it requires massive amounts of energy to generate fusion on reactions, and until this experiment, nobody had demonstrated the ability to get more energy out of the reaction than it takes to power it.

“Scientists have struggled to show that fusion can release more energy out than is put in since the 1950s,” plasma physicist Arthur Turrell told CNBC.

“During those decades, every time anyone has asked for funding for developing fusion power, the response has always been ‘first, you must show that it works in principle,'” said Turrell, who is also the author of The Star Builders. “That is, you must show that a fusion experiment can produce more energy than it uses. The researchers at Lawrence Livermore have done this for the first time ever.”

Fusion is already a hot space for climate and energy investors — so far, investors have poured almost $5 billion in investment into private fusion energy startups, according to the Fusion Industry Association, and more than half of that has been since since the second quarter of 2021.

“Everyone in the laser fusion (or inertial confinement fusion) community has been focused on getting to more energy out than in on a single experiment, because that is the key to showing the proof of principle and unlocking further investment and interest,” Turrell told CNBC.

Indeed, the private fusion industry is seeing this as a win.

“Now, the privately funded fusion industry will take the next steps, turning experimental results like this into a viable source of clean, safe energy,” Holland told CNBC. “In short, this will show the world that fusion is not science fiction: it will soon be a viable source of energy. Of course there are still many steps between these experimental results and fusion power plants, but this is an important milestone that brings us closer to the day when fusion will provide the world with clean, safe, and abundant energy.”

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Salesforce slump deepens as stock drops 7% on disappointing guidance

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Salesforce slump deepens as stock drops 7% on disappointing guidance

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff attends the 55th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, on Jan. 23, 2025.

Halil Sagirkaya | Anadolu | Getty Images

A bad year just got worse for Salesforce.

Following a disappointing revenue forecast in its quarterly earnings report late Wednesday, Salesforce’s stock slumped 8%, bringing its decline for 2025 to 28%. That’s the worst performance in large-cap tech.

Revenue increased 10% in the fiscal second quarter from a year earlier, cracking double-digit growth for the first time since early 2024. Sales of $10.24 billion topped the average analyst estimate of $10.14 billion, and earnings per share also exceeded expectations.

However, for the fiscal third quarter, Salesforce said revenue will be $10.24 billion to $10.29 billion, while analysts were expecting $10.29 billion, according to LSEG.

Salesforce regularly touts its investments in artificial intelligence and the advancements in its software as a service, or SaaS, but the company hasn’t been lifted by the AI boom in the same way as many of its tech peers — particularly those focused on infrastructure.

There’s also a concern on Wall Street that AI is going to eat away at much of the software sector.

“While the investor community oozes angst over the future of SaaS, the here and now from Salesforce, while impressive at scale, is not enough to reshape the narrative,” wrote analysts at KeyBanc Capital Markets, in a report on Wednesday. The analysts have a buy rating on the stock.

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Salesforce is dealing with challenges selling marketing and commerce products, Robin Washington, the company’s president and chief operating and financial officer, said on a conference call with analysts.

In its earnings release, Salesforce said it closed over 12,500 total deals for Agentforce, which can automate the handling of customer service questions. That includes 6,000 paid deals. The company said that over 40% of bookings for Agentforce and its data cloud came from existing customers.

CEO Marc Benioff maintained his optimistic tone, downplaying concerns about the AI threat to software and telling analysts on the earnings call that “we are seeing one of the greatest transformations” in the space.

“To hear some of this nonsense that’s out there in social media or in other places, and people say the craziest things, but it’s not grounded in any customer truth,” Benioff said.

Salesforce kept its full-year revenue outlook but now sees higher earnings. The company is targeting $11.33 to $11.37 in adjusted earnings per share on $41.1 billion to $41.3 billion in revenue.

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Figma’s stock slumps 18% after first earnings report to lowest since IPO

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Figma's stock slumps 18% after first earnings report to lowest since IPO

Figma shares continue to plunge on debut earnings call

Figma shares plummeted nearly 20% on Thursday, falling to the lowest price since the design software vendor’s IPO in July after the company reported earnings for the first time as a public company.

Results for the second quarter were largely inline with expectations, as Figma had issued preliminary results a little over a month ago. Revenue increased 41% from a year earlier to $249.6 million, slightly topping analyst estimates of $248.8 million, according to LSEG.

Analysts at Piper Sandler described the report as “largely a non-event,” but noted that the “shares have witnessed hyper-volatility” following their 250% surge in the trading debut.

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Since closing at $115.50 on its first day, the stock has lost more than half its value, lowering the company’s market cap to about $27 billion.

For the third quarter, Figma forecasted revenue of between $263 million and $265 million, which would represent about 33% growth at the middle of the range. The LSEG consensus was $256.8 million.

Figma’s IPO was significant for Silicon Valley and the tech sector broadly as it represented one of the highest-profile offerings in years and signaled Wall Street’s growing appetite for growth. The market had been in a multiyear lull that began in early 2022, when inflation was soaring and interest rates were on the rise.

Figma reported a 129% net retention rate, a reflection of expansion with existing customers. The figure was down from 132% in the first quarter.

— CNBC’s Jordan Novet contributed to this report.

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Figma shares continue to plunge on debut earnings call

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JetBlue to boost in-flight Wi-Fi with Amazon Project Kuiper internet deal

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JetBlue to boost in-flight Wi-Fi with Amazon Project Kuiper internet deal

A JetBlue Airways Airbus A321-231 departs San Diego International Airport en route to New York on March 4, 2025 in San Diego, California.

Kevin Carter | Getty Images

JetBlue Airways plans to install Amazon‘s Project Kuiper on some of its airplanes to bolster in-flight Wi-Fi, the companies announced Thursday, in a vote of confidence for the nascent internet satellite service.

The technology will be added to about a quarter of the airline’s fleet, with the rollout beginning in 2027 and expected to be complete in 2028, JetBlue President Marty St. George said on a call with reporters.

The team-up is a significant win for Amazon, which has been working to build a constellation of internet-beaming satellites in low-Earth orbit, called Project Kuiper. The service will compete directly with Elon Musk‘s Starlink, which currently dominates the market and has 8,000 satellites in orbit.

Amazon has sent up 102 satellites through a series of rocket launches since April. It’s aiming to meet a deadline by the Federal Communications Commission, which requires it to have about 1,600, or half of its full constellation, in orbit by the end of July 2026.

The company hopes to begin commercial service later this year.

“Even though we still have a lot more work to do, we’re super excited to have JetBlue as the first airline customer for Kuiper,” Chris Weber, Kuiper’s vice president of sales and marketing, told reporters.

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Starlink has signed up a growing number of airlines to use its services. JetBlue is Kuiper’s first airline partner, though Amazon has signed several deals recently as it tries to expand the service, including with European plane maker Airbus in April.

JetBlue has offered free in-flight internet for years through a partnership with Viasat, which operates a network of geostationary, or GEO, satellites. That partnership will continue, St. George said.

He praised Amazon’s satellite service, saying Kuiper offers high speed, low latency and high reliability compared with GEO satellite networks. JetBlue could eventually use a combination of low-Earth orbit and GEO satellites for in-flight internet, St. George added.

U.S. airlines have been working to improve their in-flight Wi-Fi, which has long been derided for slow speeds and high prices.

Delta Air Lines followed JetBlue in unveiling complimentary connectivity in 2023 for its SkyMiles loyalty program members. Hawaiian Airlines is using Starlink for free in-flight Wi-Fi, and Alaska Airlines, which acquired that carrier last year, recently said it would outfit its planes with the same service.

United Airlines is also working to equip its planes to offer its loyalty program members free Wi-Fi through Starlink. American Airlines, for its part, in April said it plans to have free in-flight internet on most of its planes next year for members of its AAdvantage program.

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