Disruptions Team joins the 2026 Eni Annual Meeting

On June 16th-17th 2026, some members of the MIT PSFC Disruptions Group traveled once again to San Donato Milanese for Eni’s Annual Meeting, where academic and industrial partners take stock of the research carried out by Eni worldwide, and by other MIT research groups under the MIT Energy Initiative (MITei) program.

This year, the meeting opened with a moving tribute to our director, colleague and friend Nuno Loureiro. It was impressive to see the mark he left, both professionally and personally, well beyond our institute.

As in previous editions, the programme brought together researchers and industry experts for a broad discussion on some of the key scientific and technological challenges shaping the path towards commercial fusion energy.

The sessions spanned several major areas of fusion technology and ongoing R&D activities. CFS CEO Bob Mumgaard provided an update on the progress of SPARC and ARC, highlighting the pathway from demonstrating fusion performance to future power generation. Tritium breeding and the fusion fuel cycle were also discussed as key challenges for future fusion power plants, including ongoing research at PSFC through projects such as LIBRA. Another major theme was the growing role of artificial intelligence and data science in fusion, and their potential contribution to the design, understanding and operation of future experiments.

The event also offered an opportunity to review the progress of the ongoing collaboration between Eni and MIT’s Plasma Science and Fusion Center. Joint research spans areas including plasma physics, control data-driven approaches, and advanced diagnostics, addressing challenges relevant to the next generation of fusion experiments and future power plants.

Researchers from both institutions shared progress and perspectives across these areas, including work on plasma stability and confinement and the development of diagnostic technologies for fusion environments. For more information, please check out our contributions to High Temperature Plasma Diagnostics 2026.

Together, these activities reflect the broader ambition of the Eni–MIT collaboration: combining scientific and industrial expertise to address key fusion technology challenges and help bridge the gap between research and future energy applications.