Some fusion magnets need to turn on and off continually. VIPER was tested for thousands of on-off cycles and saw minimal performance degradation. VIPER's main innovation is combining hundreds of individual tapes into a soldered, monolithic block of conductor.

A variant of VIPER will be used in an ARPA-E funded program to make a fast-ramping, high-field central solenoid magnet capable of initiating and sustaining plasma current in a tokamak device on its own. This magnet will lower the cost and complexity of commercial fusion power plants.