Take a look around wherever you’re reading this, and everything you see is the result, in one way or another, of nuclear fusion. In the core of stars, hydrogen atoms fuse into helium, resulting in a terrific amount of energy and heat. Dying stars produce every element on the periodic table from carbon to plutonium, but it’s the promise of a literally astronomical amount of thermal energy that drives a longstanding pursuit of nuclear fusion as a source of vastly plentiful and relatively clean electricity.

This month, General Fusion, a Canadian fusion energy startup, partnered with the UK Atomic Energy Authority to build and operate a demonstration plant in Oxfordshire, UK. Coming just one month after the news that First Light Fusion, a British fusion energy startup, had completed the construction of its experimental two-stage light gas gun, it’s becoming clear that the UK is emerging as a fusion energy hub of the future.