> Will we enter into a tipping point of materials science that allows magnets strong enough and suddenly we get fusion and it becomes ever better as we make bet

> Will we enter into a tipping point of materials science that allows magnets strong enough and suddenly we get fusion and it becomes ever better as we make better superconducting magnets? I think that's the idea. Iter is about as small as it could possibly be and still work given the magnet field strength they had designed around. With stronger magnets, we can make smaller reactors, which are cheaper to make and (if I understand correctly) have better power density. At some point it stops being practical to make it any smaller as the limits become "how thin can we make this shielding material?" or "how much heat energy can we remove by pumping fluids around?" And then once we've proven the concept and we've settled into an optimal size the engineering focus turns to "how cheaply can we manufacture this?" and "how can we reduce the total operating cost per megawatt hour?".