Darren Garnier

New Capabilities

Overseeing plasma physics program

For the first time, a commercial company has confined plasma using a levitated dipole reactor — a design where a single half-tonne superconducting magnet floats freely inside a vacuum chamber, held aloft only by magnetic force, while superheated gas swirls around it at over one million degrees Celsius. On February 17, 2026, Wellington-based OpenStar Technologies publicly demonstrated this feat in its five-meter-wide "Junior" prototype, with New Zealand Prime Minister Christopher Luxon triggering the final stage of the experiment.

Updated Mar 6