Fusion energy is a critical technology that will be “a total game changer”, but the US faces a global race with China which is pouring $1.5bn (€1.3bn) a year into the sector and rapidly building its research programme, a US Senate committee has been told.

Joe Manchin, an independent senator for West Virginia and chair of the Senate Committee on Environment and Natural Resources, told a recent hearing of the committee that China has mimicked Washington’s own plan for developing fusion energy and is rapidly building out its research programme and labs, modelled after the US Department of Energy’s national laboratories.

Manchin said the US is still leading the fusion race, but China is entering the field “in a big way”. In 2023, China’s investments in 2023 were more than all of the other countries combined, Manchin said.