Because of the diverse nature of the funding mixes that support work in the different countries, the particular uncertainties about industrial contributions, and extent to which contributions to one aspect of superconductivity work carry over to another, it is not easy to accurately count all components of each national program on power applications of superconductivity. The goal of the U.S. program is to be first to market power applications of HTS materials. All three countries have this goal, but the Japanese and German view is that significant markets for HTS power applications will take a decade or more to develop. Large companies appear to be more comfortable with working on demonstrations of HTS technology, which might be far from being economic in the near term, provided they are part of a technology-enabling path. Small companies must come to market sooner and thus are looking for more immediate applications, many of which might be economic on a smaller scale.
Most technology is still at the precompetitive stage, making continued innovation vital.
In Japan and Germany this is clearly recognized as being the case. In spite of the small markets that do now exist, large global markets for power applications of superconductivity have not yet developed, and governments are playing a continuing and important role in funding all programs, whether in the United States, Germany or Japan. A characteristic of U.S. work has been the development of really outstanding interinstitutional collaboration. This increase seems well justified since the current U.S. program has been extremely successful with only limited funds. The future for power applications of superconductors has many aspects.