I don’t have any useful speculation to contribute, but here’s a classic chart showing various funding levels towards that goal:

Here’s a slashdot thread from 2012 where some fusion researchers did an AMA type thing:

https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/12/04/11/0435231/mit-fusion-researchers-answer-your-questions

Here’s also a recent HN thread about achieving more energy than we put in:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33971377

The crucial bit is this

Their total power draw from the grid was 300 megajoules and they got back about 3 megajoules, so don’t start celebrating yet

That’s still really encouraging, but just a warning that headlines don’t capture the full picture.