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BREAKTHROUGH TRACKER

Next major breakthroughs, with evidence

Each track is a timeline of real events — lab results, roadmap updates, plan markers. So you can see what already happened and what is still a promise.

2 active tracks

Fusion / Energy In progress

Net-energy fusion at grid scale

When does a commercial reactor put more energy on the grid than it consumes to ignite? Aggregated markers from EAST, ITER, NIF and SPARC.

Target 2035
Progress 42%

Timeline

  1. NIF achieves Q > 1 in the lab

    Lawrence Livermore National Lab captures 3.15 MJ of fusion energy from a 2.05 MJ laser input.

  2. EAST sustains plasma pulse for 1,066 seconds

    The Chinese tokamak sets a new record for high-temperature plasma stability.

  3. SPARC achieves first plasma

    Commonwealth Fusion Systems brings SPARC online in Devens (USA) with first measurable plasma.

  4. ITER finalises toroidal field coils

    The ITER site in Cadarache successfully completes the last of 18 superconducting coils.

  5. ITER first plasma scheduled

    Current plan; risk markers from supply chain and vacuum chamber issues.

  6. First commercial net-energy plant

    Industry consensus target; CFS and Helion aim earlier, ITER at 2040+.

Quantum In progress

Fault-tolerant quantum computers (QEC)

When does a machine reliably run quantum algorithms with logical error rate below 10^-9? Tracking IBM, Google, Quantinuum, Microsoft.

Target 2032
Progress 28%

Timeline

  1. Google: surface code scales with distance

    Google demonstrates for the first time that the logical error rate drops as surface-code distance grows.

  2. Google Willow crosses below-threshold

    105-qubit Willow chip reaches a physical error rate where QEC reduces rather than amplifies error.

  3. Quantinuum: 12 logical qubits stable

    Trapped-ion system maintains 12 logical qubits across 10^4 operations at >99.9% fidelity.

  4. IBM Kookaburra roadmap update

    4,158-qubit modular architecture for 2026/27 announced with a dedicated QEC layer.

  5. 100 logical qubits target

    Consensus marker of the QEC roadmap: applications beyond demos become feasible here.

  6. Fault-tolerant utility benchmark

    Industry-wide consensus expectation for an economically relevant QEC scenario.