Fusion research is not that- it needs very large equipment investments for decades for even the most trivial experiments.
If we had tried to get to the moon with the same model we'd still be waiting!
This is what is holding fusion from commercial viability.
Give me a modern tokamak with 75 years of known dynamics, increase the size and magnetic field (i.e. bring high temp superconducting wires to market).
At the very least you get something as a consolation prize that has real uses vs. decades of wacky research ideas that more than likely will go nowhere.
IMO thinking of fusion as needing a "silver bullet" to viability is one of the major issues. Everyone wants the sexy new reactor concept, but nobody wants to be improving the boring donut design that's on the edge of practicality.
“It will be the world's largest magnetic confinement plasma physics experiment and the largest experimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor.”
Does the $3.9B spent on ITER not count?
https://www.science.org/content/article/cost-skyrockets-unit...
Orders of magnitude matter and fission / fusion R&D has been criminally underfunded for decades.
[1] https://www.brookings.edu/research/gauging-investment-in-sel...
[2] https://www.energy.gov/ne/our-budget
[3] https://www.newsweek.com/nuclear-fusion-report-private-inves...
The DARPA challenge kicked off a many many billions of dollars arms race of private capital and we're only just starting to see a trickle of self driving cars on the road some 18 years later. Not to mention meaningful R&D advancements in AI, sensing software algorithms, HW sensing capabilities, etc that have seen applications outside of self driving.