China has just placed a major new national bet on commercializing fusion energy, and now is the time for the U.S. to respond.

Chinese state and industrial leaders are positioning the country to lead the world in innovation. They’re working to replicate the ecosystem of ideas and invention that has made the U.S. so special on the world’s stage, touching billions of lives with core technologies like the automobile and the internet.

Doing so supports China’s own economic development and extends the country’s long-term geopolitical influence, the exact same advantages the innovation ecosystem brought to the U.S. over the last century. The Chinese effort is forward-looking, placing bets on the technologies that will dominate the global economy for generations.

That means funding both for basic research areas like life sciences, materials science, and quantum computing and for applied research in areas like semiconductors, electric vehicles, AI, batteries — and fusion, the last new energy source humanity will need.

This week, China took a major new step down that path of progress with about $2.1 billion in new funding that positions

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