David Kingham
SPEAKER

David Kingham

Dr David Kingham, Founder and Executive Vice Chairman, Tokamak Energy Ltd

Dr David Kingham is Executive Vice Chairman of Tokamak Energy, a company that aims to accelerate the development of fusion. Fusion power is challenging to develop but it will be safe, clean, cost effective and rapidly deployable at scale, with plentiful fuel for centuries to come. Tokamak Energy is developing compact, high magnetic field, spherical tokamaks and is building on world leading expertise in fusion, spherical tokamaks and high field superconducting magnets in the UK. Tokamak Energy has raised $250m of investment so far, including $50m in grants and R&D support from UK government and US Dept of Energy, and has grown to over 250 employees. The company has announced a record breaking, 26 tesla, high temperature superconducting magnet (tested at CERN) and its ST40 high field spherical tokamak achieved plasma temperature of 100m degrees, the threshold necessary for commercial fusion energy, in early 2022. Dr Kingham founded Tokamak Energy with two pioneering fusion scientists from UKAEA Culham Laboratory and served as the company’s first CEO. He has a PhD in Physics from the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge.