For centuries, turning ordinary metals into gold was considered an impossible dream. Scientists have since proved that it is possible to create gold artificially. Now, a recent claim by a US startup has brought the idea back into focus.
On October 21, 2026, Marathon Fusion, a San Francisco-based fusion energy startup, announced that it had converted mercury into stable gold using nuclear fusion technology. The company claimed its method achieved a production rate ten times higher than a benchmark reported by CERN in 2025.
However, there is an important distinction between a scientific breakthrough and a commercially viable process. The company's claim has not been independently verified, and the amount of gold produced has not been publicly established. So, can gold really be made in a laboratory, and could it eventually become an alternative to mined gold?
How Can Gold Be Made in a Laboratory?
Gold is a chemical element with the atomic number 79. This means every gold atom has 79 protons in its nucleus. To create gold from another element, scientists must change the number of protons in that element's nucleus. This process is known as nuclear transmutation.
Ordinary chemical reactions cannot achieve this. Heating a metal, mixing substances, or applying pressure will not turn another element into gold.
Nuclear reactions, however, can change the identity of an atom. Scientists have demonstrated this using particle accelerators and other nuclear processes. The challenge is producing gold in quantities large enough to be useful.
What Has CERN Achieved?
In May 2025, CERN's ALICE experiment reported measurements showing that lead nuclei could transform into gold nuclei during near-miss interactions inside the Large Hadron Collider.
Lead has 82 protons, while gold has 79. Under certain conditions, a lead nucleus can lose three protons and become a gold nucleus.
According to CERN, the process produced gold nuclei at a maximum rate of approximately 89,000 per second at the ALICE collision point. Yet the total amount remained incredibly small. During the Large Hadron Collider's 2015–2018 operating period, approximately 86 billion gold nuclei were produced across its four major experiments, equivalent to just 29 picograms of gold.
That is 29 trillionths of a gram.
The gold nuclei also existed for only a tiny fraction of a second before colliding with accelerator equipment and breaking apart. The experiment demonstrated that lead could be converted into gold, but it was not designed to manufacture usable metal.
What Is Different About Marathon Fusion's Claim?
Marathon Fusion's announcement marks a different approach to the same underlying scientific principle.
Instead of relying on high-energy lead collisions, the company says it used neutrons generated through nuclear fusion to convert mercury into stable gold.
According to reports published in October 2026, its proposed process begins with mercury-198. When exposed to fusion neutrons, the isotope can become mercury-197, which subsequently decays into gold-197, a stable isotope of gold.
The company claims this process achieved a rate ten times higher than CERN's reported benchmark.
However, the claim needs to be treated with caution. As of October 27, 2026, publicly available reporting has not established the total quantity of gold produced, the process's efficiency, or its commercial cost. Independent verification of the result has also not been reported.
Marathon Fusion has previously explored the potential for fusion technology to produce gold as a by-product. Its projections about future production are not the same as demonstrating that a commercial facility can manufacture gold at that scale.
For now, the announcement is a development worth watching, but it does not establish that laboratory-made gold is ready for the market.
Why Can't Lab-Grown Gold Replace Mined Gold Yet?
The term ‘lab-grown gold’ can be misleading because it suggests a process similar to that of ‘lab-grown diamonds.’
Lab-grown diamonds are produced by recreating the conditions needed for carbon atoms to form a diamond crystal. Gold is different because it is an element. Creating new gold atoms requires changing an atomic nucleus, which involves nuclear technology rather than conventional manufacturing.
The main challenges are:
Cost of production: Nuclear equipment, energy, and specialized processes can make artificial gold prohibitively expensive.
Scale: Producing a small quantity in an experiment does not mean the process can be scaled to produce kilograms or tonnes consistently.
Radioactivity and safety: Depending on the nuclear reaction, radioactive isotopes may be produced. The resulting material must be assessed and processed appropriately before it can be used or sold.
Commercial viability: Even if gold can be produced artificially, the cost must be competitive with the cost of obtaining mined or recycled gold.
Until these challenges are addressed, laboratory-created gold is unlikely to become a practical alternative to conventional sources.
Could Lab-Grown Gold Affect Gold Prices?
This is the question that makes the latest development particularly interesting for investors.
Gold prices are influenced by factors such as interest rates, inflation expectations, central bank purchases, currency movements and investment demand. The supply of newly mined and recycled gold also plays a role.
If scientists eventually develop a commercially viable way to produce gold in large quantities, it could change the metal's supply dynamics. In theory, a substantial increase in supply could put pressure on prices, depending on demand and the economics of production.
But that scenario remains hypothetical.
Marathon Fusion's claim does not establish that it can produce gold at a commercially competitive cost. Its projections for future fusion plants are based on a proposed process, not proven output from an operating commercial facility.
For now, investors have little reason to assume that laboratory production will meaningfully increase gold supply in the near term.
Can Lab-Grown Gold Have the Same Value as Mined Gold?
Gold produced through nuclear transmutation can be chemically identical to naturally occurring gold if it consists of the same stable isotope. Its origin alone does not make it a different element.
However, the practical value of laboratory-produced gold would depend on its purity, isotopic composition, safety, production cost, and ability to meet the requirements of refiners and buyers.
A scientifically successful experiment does not automatically create a marketable product. The gold must be produced, recovered, and verified at a cost that makes commercial sense.
This is also why the comparison with lab-grown diamonds has limits. The diamond industry developed processes that could produce stones at scale and at competitive prices. No equivalent commercial production system for newly created gold has been established.
The Bottom Line
Yes, gold can be made in a laboratory through nuclear transmutation. CERN has demonstrated the conversion of lead into gold nuclei, and Marathon Fusion now claims to have converted mercury into stable gold using fusion neutrons.
The important question is no longer simply whether the transformation is possible. It is whether scientists can produce enough gold, safely and economically, to make the process commercially useful.
As of October 27, 2026, Marathon Fusion's latest claim remains unverified by independent evidence in the public reporting reviewed. Until the company establishes the quantity, cost, and scalability of its process, mined and recycled gold remains the practical source of supply. For the gold market, laboratory production is an intriguing scientific possibility, not yet a demonstrated threat to the metal's scarcity or price.
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