Fusion start-up Helion stands by 2028 timeline despite rivals’ doubts
Venture backed by OpenAI’s Sam Altman and tech billionaire Peter Thiel says it is on track to deliver electricity to Microsoft
Helion Energy, the nuclear fusion start-up backed by OpenAI’s Sam Altman, has insisted it is on course to supply Microsoft with electricity by 2028, despite industry scepticism as its ambition timeline draws nearer.
Chief financial officer Pragav Jain told the FT that the company “remains on track” to meet key milestones, including its agreement to deliver power through the grid by 2028, something no fusion company has achieved.
Fusion companies are seeking to replicate the reaction that powers the Sun by forcing atomic nuclei to combine in a superheated plasma.
However, while US government scientists have achieved the key milestone of “net energy gain” — generating more electricity than is consumed to make fusion occur — no start-up has yet done so, let alone build a commercially viable power plant.
Helion, valued at $5.4bn in its latest fundraising, has raised $1bn from investors including Altman and his fellow US tech billionaire Peter Thiel. But despite being one of the best-funded fusion start-ups, its ambitious timeline has fuelled scepticism.
One rival fusion executive said the company’s target “doesn’t add up”, citing in particular a lack of explanation over how it would manage high-energy neutrons, which can damage reactor structures.
Helion said in a YouTube video that it was developing a material with “its own kind of healing mechanism”, based on a physical process in which atomic defects migrate and recombine within the damaged structure.
But it has drawn criticism for disclosing relatively little about its scientific progress, although Jain has previously said this was to protect the company’s intellectual property from “copycats”.
He declined to say whether the Microsoft agreement would be profitable for Helion but said the generator designed for the IT giant, which it is building in Washington state, would be a “sub-scale commercial unit”, meaning it would be less efficient than the larger systems the company hopes to deploy later.
Helion has also signed an agreement to develop a 500-megawatt power plant with steelmaker Nucor for 2030.
Axios reported last month that OpenAI was also in talks to buy electricity from the fusion venture.
One fusion investor said the continued intensity of competition across the sector suggested that Helion had not established itself as a clear winner. If the company were truly that far ahead of rivals, the investor said, “honestly, [fusion] conferences are not necessary”.
US-based Commonwealth Fusion Systems, the best-funded fusion company with about $3bn raised, plans to build its first commercial plant in the US in the early 2030s, with Google signed up as an offtake customer. According to the Fusion Industry Association, 89 per cent of private fusion companies believe the technology will be supplying power to the grid by the 2030s.
Helion argues that one source of its confidence lies in its design. Unlike most power plants, it does not plan to rely on turbines to convert heat into electricity.
Instead, the company aims to generate electricity directly from changes in the magnetic field as the plasma expands, inducing a current in surrounding coils — a more energy-efficient process. One fusion investor who spoke to the FT described the approach as the “holy grail” of fusion.
In theory, that could allow Helion to produce commercially useful electricity with a smaller net energy gain than rivals. Helion is testing a pre-commercial machine intended to “demonstrate electricity from fusion”, although Jain declined to say whether the company was close to an energy break-even point.