Francesco Sciortino is Co-Founder and CEO of Proxima Fusion, a Munich-based startup that aims to bring stellarators and their promise of clean, safe and abundant fusion energy to market. As the first-ever spin-out company from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, Proxima is designing the first generation of fusion power plants using quasi-isodynamic (QI) stellarators—the clearest, most robust path to commercial fusion.