By Paul Hommert and Bob Webster
In 1995, facing the end of nuclear testing and uncertain about our ability to maintain the nuclear deterrent without it, the United States made a bold bet. The Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship Program[1] represented an audacious wager that advanced computing, sophisticated diagnostics, and world-class science could remove the need to continue conducting the underground nuclear tests that had underpinned confidence in our arsenal for five decades. Thus far, that bet has paid off, in no small part because of visionary public-private partnerships that transformed American supercomputing and maintained our technological edge.
We worked at two of the U.S. National Laboratories responsible for maintaining our deterrence capability, and along with many others, were involved in shaping the nuclear weapons Stewardship program. Today, we face an even more complex strategic landscape that demands similar bold thinking. As we confront these challenges, an unexpected opportunity has emerged: a renaissance in commercial fusion energy that could revolutionize not just our energy future, but also strengthen the scientific and technological foundation of our national security. The question is whether we will seize this opportunity with the same decisiveness we showed in 1995.
The Stewardship Success Story
When President Clinton announced support for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty in 1995, many questioned whether the U.S. could maintain its nuclear arsenal without testing. The answer was the Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship program, an integrated approach combining advanced simulation, high-energy-density physics experiments, materials science, and manufacturing expertise to ensure the safety, security, and effectiveness of our weapons.
Central to this success was the then-unprecedented public-private partnership in high-performance computing. Through the Advanced Simulation and Computing (ASC) program,[2] NNSA partnered with industry leaders — IBM, Cray, Intel — to push the boundaries of computational science. That partnership did not merely serve a single government mission. It catalyzed American leadership in supercomputing and generated innovation that spread across the entire economy, proof that when national security and commercial ambition point in the same direction, both sides win.
The results speak for themselves. For more than 30 years, the United States has maintained its nuclear stockpile without full-scale testing,[3] while laboratories have made fundamental scientific discoveries and maintained world-class expertise. That record stands because we aligned mission needs with commercial innovation at exactly the right moment. We must do it again.
A More Dangerous World
The world that our colleagues navigate today would be nearly unrecognizable to the architects of 1995. Then, we faced a diminished Russia still reeling from the Soviet collapse and a China with a minimal nuclear arsenal. The post-Cold War “peace dividend” seemed real, and the primary challenge was maintaining Cold War capabilities as the mission shrank.
How different things look now. China is undertaking a dramatic nuclear expansion — the Department of Defense projects Beijing may possess 1,000 warheads by 2030.[4] They are building hundreds of new ICBM silos, fielding new submarines and bombers, and developing novel delivery systems. Russia, meanwhile, has not only modernized its strategic forces but also brandished them threateningly while developing exotic systems like nuclear-powered cruise missiles and autonomous underwater weapons.
This strategic reality has placed extraordinary new demands on NNSA. For the first time in the agency’s history, we must simultaneously modernize all three legs of the nuclear triad. We must rebuild plutonium pit production capability—a goal of no fewer than 80 pits per year[5]—after decades of dormancy, knowing that even the 2030 target is under severe schedule pressure.[6] We must recapitalize aging infrastructure while recruiting and training a new generation of nuclear scientists and engineers. All of this while maintaining a stockpile facing a more diverse and dynamic threat environment than at any time since the end of the Cold War.
The Innovation Imperative
Maintaining technological superiority in this environment is not optional. It is the price of deterrence. Deterrence credibility rests not just on current capabilities, but on adversaries’ assessment of our ability to adapt to future challenges. If our adversaries develop breakthrough defensive technologies, can we respond? If new threats emerge that require novel capabilities, do we have the scientific basis to address them? Can we maintain the flexibility to deter not just today’s threats, but ones we cannot yet imagine?
These questions demand that we preserve and enhance the scientific and technological edge that has long been America’s strategic advantage. But here the workforce challenges are significant, and we watched this play out over our careers. The aforementioned demands on the NNSA program have attracted significant scientific and technical talent. However, it is essential that this talent must develop the highly specialized skills that Stewardship demands by being able to access ever-evolving computational and experimental tools. Recruiting, challenging, and retaining the brightest young talent to work on nuclear weapons requires such an environment.
We cannot rest on past innovations, no matter how hard-won. The supercomputing partnerships that served us so well in the 1990s and 2000s are still valuable but are now mature. The low-hanging fruit has been picked. We need new partnerships, new technologies, and new infusions of innovative thinking to maintain our edge. We believe there is a new opportunity in front of us.
The Commercial Fusion Revolution
That opportunity has been building for years, and it is now undeniable: commercial fusion energy. After decades as “the energy source of the future that always will be,” fusion research is experiencing a genuine renaissance. More than 40 private fusion companies have now attracted cumulative global investment exceeding $10 billion,[7] with U.S.-based companies capturing the majority of that capital.[8] Companies are pursuing diverse technical approaches — magnetic confinement, inertial fusion, novel hybrid concepts — and several are targeting demonstration of net energy gain within this decade.
Recent advances provide the underpinning for these investments. In December 2022, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory’s National Ignition Facility achieved controlled fusion ignition for the first time in history,[9] a breakthrough that validated decades of physics research and galvanized private investment.[10] Multiple subsequent experiments have repeated and exceeded that achievement.[11] Multiple private companies are now racing to commercialize fusion, each bringing innovative approaches to materials, magnets, lasers, diagnostics, and computational modeling.
As former lab leaders, we see in the commercial fusion boom offering a unique national security opportunity. The physics of fusion energy and fusion weapons are not identical, but they share fundamental overlap: plasma physics at extreme conditions; advanced materials that can withstand punishing neutron bombardment; sophisticated diagnostics to probe microsecond phenomena; high-performance computing to model turbulent plasma behavior; precision manufacturing at previously unachievable tolerances.
Put plainly, the technologies critical to commercial fusion success are the same technologies on which stockpile stewardship depends. Innovation in one domain accelerates progress in the other. We would be foolish to let that alignment go to waste.
A New Partnership Opportunity
This convergence presents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to replicate the success of the ASC program.
We can tell you what NNSA stands to gain from structured partnerships with commercial fusion ventures, because we have seen the overlap firsthand:
Access to rapid innovation. Private fusion companies move with startup velocity quickly iterating designs, testing novel approaches, and failing fast when ideas don’t work. The government procurement process cannot match that speed. That gap accentuates the opportunity
Workforce pipeline. Fusion companies are attracting brilliant young physicists and engineers eager to solve humanity’s energy challenge. That talent pool is exactly what our labs are working to recruit. Partnership is how we connect.
Materials innovation. The materials challenges for commercial fusion — first wall materials that survive neutron bombardment and advanced manufacturing of complex geometries — directly map to stockpile stewardship needs. This is not speculative; it is a literal overlap in the research agenda.
Computational advancement. Plasma modeling remains computationally intensive, driving continued advancement in algorithms and architectures that benefit weapons simulation codes.
And the partnership is win/win, the benefits flow both ways. For commercial fusion companies, a partnership with NNSA offers world-leading expertise in high-energy-density physics and plasma diagnostics, validation experiments at facilities like NIF, a connection to national security missions that attracts talent, and government research contracts that provide stability when private capital grows impatient.
Learning from History
The model already exists. The ASC program did not simply purchase computers. It created a sustained collaboration in which NNSA’s extreme requirements drove industry innovation, and industry’s commercial incentives ensured the durability of that innovation. The key insight, neither partner could have achieved the result alone.
We should pursue an analogous model for fusion technologies and let us be clear about what that means and what it does not mean. It does not mean NNSA funds commercial fusion companies to build power plants. Their investors are handling that. It means identifying the specific technical areas ripe for public-private partnerships including materials science, advanced diagnostics, plasma modeling, precision manufacturing while creating structured collaborations focused on advancing those shared capabilities.
Imagine collaborative research agreements in which NNSA scientists work alongside commercial fusion researchers to address materials challenges. Envision computational collaborations where weapons simulation codes help optimize commercial fusion designs, and commercial plasma modeling advances flow back to enhance stockpile codes. This is a structured program, with precedent, waiting to be launched.
While the ASC program offers a powerful template, we must recognize that collaboration in the unique physics regimes we are discussing brings different challenges at the boundary between commercial fusion pursuits and classified national security requirements. Careful attention to this boundary will be needed; however, we are confident that agreements can be put in place that rely on long-standing principles of role and responsibility clarity, classification guidance, and need-to-know principles, allowing robust staff-experimental venue interaction.
The China Challenge
If the strategic benefits alone do not move you, consider the competitive reality: China is not waiting. They are investing billions in fusion research,[12] building multiple large-scale experimental facilities, and integrating fusion into their national strategic plans. Chinese scientists publish prolifically on fusion topics and actively recruit international expertise.
Chinese leadership understands that fusion technology leadership will bring economic advantages through eventual energy transformation, but they equally grasp the strategic implications. Advanced capabilities in materials, diagnostics, and plasma physics strengthen their overall scientific base—including capabilities relevant to their growing nuclear arsenal.
If we cede fusion technology leadership to China, the cost will not be measured only in lost energy revenues. We risk falling behind in fundamental scientific capabilities that underpin our nuclear deterrent and our broader strategic position. The scientists and engineers who push fusion technology forward are the same talent pool that maintains stockpile capabilities. The diagnostic tools developed for fusion experiments advance high-energy-density physics. The materials that enable fusion reactors strengthen manufacturing capabilities across defense applications.
The commercial fusion renaissance happening in American companies right now is a strategic asset, one that China is working urgently to match.[13] Whether we treat it as such is a choice we are making, consciously or not, right now.
A Closing Window
We have learned over decades in this field that strategic windows do not stay open. Commercial fusion investment is flowing now, talent is mobilizing now, and companies are building capabilities now. But private capital is impatient. If early demonstrations disappoint, if technical challenges prove harder than hoped, funding could evaporate as quickly as it appeared. Meanwhile, China’s state-directed investment will continue regardless of short-term setbacks.
We stand at a moment analogous to 1995. The leaders of that era chose bold partnership over incremental caution. That choice, to bet on advanced simulation, to partner with industry, to maintain capability without testing, secured our deterrent through three decades of geopolitical turmoil. That is the standard we must meet again.
The challenge today is greater: a more threatening world, more demanding requirements, more intense competition. But the opportunity is also greater. Commercial fusion’s renaissance offers a chance to revitalize scientific capabilities, attract new talent to national security missions, accelerate innovation in critical technologies, and maintain the scientific edge that deterrence requires.
To be clear about what we are arguing, this is not about fusion energy replacing nuclear deterrence. It is not even primarily about energy. It is about recognizing that technological superiority requires sustained innovation, that innovation flourishes in ecosystems combining public mission with private dynamism, and that opportunities to create such ecosystems are rare and precious via public-private partnerships.
The architects of stockpile stewardship had the wisdom to see computing partnerships as essential to national security. We were shaped by that program. Now we are asking policymakers to show similar wisdom and courage.
The question is not whether we can afford to pursue these partnerships. Given the strategic environment, the Chinese challenge, and the mission demands before us, the only honest question is whether we can afford not to. History will judge us by whether we seized this moment or let it slip away. The choice is ours, but the window will not stay open.
Dr. Paul Hommert is the former Director of Sandia National Laboratories (2010-2015). Dr. Hommert also served as Director of Research and Applied Science at the Atomic Weapons Establishment in the United Kingdom (2000-2003) and as the Director of the Applied Physics Division at Los Alamos National Laboratory (2003-2006).
Dr. Bob Webster served as Principal Associate Laboratory Director followed by Deputy Lab Director at Los Alamos National Laboratory (2016-2026) and was responsible for planning and execution of the nuclear weapons program at Los Alamos.