Pranos Fusion Unveils PRAGYA Tokamak for Fusion Research

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Key takeaways

Bengaluru-based Pranos Fusion unveiled PRAGYA, India's first privately developed compact tokamak.
A tokamak uses strong magnetic fields to contain plasma superheated to 150 million °C within a doughnut-shaped vacuum chamber.
India holds a 9% stake in the global ITER project in France, which aims to produce 500 MW of fusion power from 50 MW of heating input.
No experimental fusion reactor globally has yet achieved a net energy gain where the Q-value exceeds 1.

A Bengaluru-based startup named Pranos Fusion recently revealed PRAGYA, which is India's first privately developed compact tokamak.
This achievement represents a major step forward for private companies entering India's nuclear fusion research sector.

A tokamak is a specialized experimental device built to capture and use fusion energy.
Physical materials cannot touch plasma heated to 150 million °C without melting instantly. To solve this, a tokamak uses a doughnut-shaped vacuum vessel and strong magnetic fields to keep the hot plasma floating safely in mid-air.
This design is the most widely tested fusion reactor model globally. It forms the core design for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER) project in France, where India participates as a key partner.

The tokamak creates a stable magnetic cage that prevents plasma from touching the walls by combining a toroidal field from external coils with a poloidal field produced by electric current inside the plasma.
High-energy, uncharged neutrons escape the magnetic trap during fusion and hit the inner wall of the reactor.
The reactor wall uses a Lithium blanket to absorb neutron heat, which boils water to power electricity turbines while reacting with lithium to generate fresh Tritium fuel.

Deuterium fuel can be harvested endlessly from ocean water, while lithium supplies are abundant across the crust of the Earth.
The reaction generates harmless helium without releasing any greenhouse gases.
The system has built-in safety features because any magnet breakdown instantly cools the plasma, which prevents dangerous meltdowns.
The reactor avoids creating long-lasting radioactive waste common in standard uranium fission plants.

Keeping the plasma stable requires massive electricity inputs, so no current tokamak yields a net energy gain with a Q-value > 1.
High-energy neutron radiation causes continuous material damage to inner wall components.
Natural Tritium is extremely rare, making success dependent on unproven lithium blanket breeding systems.

The Institute for Plasma Research (IPR) in Gandhinagar works under the Department of Atomic Energy (DAE) to lead national fusion programs.
The institute runs domestic research devices including ADITYA-U and the Steady State Superconducting Tokamak (SST-1).
India contributes 9% of the construction value for the ITER project in France, which targets 500 MW output from 50 MW input.
The private sector entered domestic research through Pranos Fusion and its PRAGYA device, which tests compact High-Temperature Superconducting (HTS) magnets.

Nuclear fusion is the physical process that generates energy in the Sun when light isotopes like Deuterium and Tritium fuse.
The final helium atom loses a tiny amount of mass known as mass defect, which transforms into clean energy based on E = mc².
Fuel gases must reach temperatures above 150 million °C to transform into plasma, the superheated fourth state of matter.