Helion receives $175 million for fusion power semiconductors
Fusion startup Helion has been awarded $175 million in federal funding to research, develop and manufacture advanced semiconductors and power electronics for its fusion power plants. The three-year award, made by the US Department of Commerce under the CHIPS Act, comes as Helion builds its first plant, Orion, and works toward its commitment to provide grid electricity to Microsoft by 2028.
Helion says its current power-electronic devices lose roughly 5% to 10% of the electricity flowing through them. Chief executive and co-founder David Kirtley said that reducing those losses by half could translate into twice the power output of the overall fusion system, because inefficiencies compound across the machine.
Building domestic capacity for high-voltage devices
The funding will help Helion establish automated semiconductor-module assembly, packaging and testing capacity in Washington State for the fusion machine under construction. Kirtley said the planned production line would be the first in the United States to make this class of advanced, high-voltage and pulsed semiconductor.
More than $100 million is earmarked for semiconductor and advanced-packaging research and development in Washington State. Approximately $80 million will support work in Vermont on advanced semiconductor tooling, design and process development with GlobalFoundries. Helion also announced a separate $50 million private investment, without identifying the investor.
GlobalFoundries has separately received more than $80 million in federal funding to advance gallium-nitride semiconductor manufacturing. Gallium nitride is widely used in power electronics, while the device class Helion intends to manufacture has potential applications beyond fusion, including manufacturing, wastewater treatment, medicine and defense.
Efficiency is central to Helion's reactor design
Helion is developing a field-reversed configuration reactor. Fuel is injected from both ends of an hourglass-shaped chamber and heated into plasma, then accelerated together with magnetic fields. A further magnetic compression raises the plasma temperature to more than 100 million degrees Celsius.
As fusion reactions release energy and push the plasma outward, Helion aims to capture that force through magnetic fields, magnets and capacitors as electricity. This direct energy conversion differs from conventional thermal power generation, which uses heat to make steam and turn a turbine. The company argues that efficient semiconductors are essential both to sending electricity into the fusion process and recovering it rapidly.
Kirtley said the federal-contract process means the newly funded R&D will not be incorporated into Orion for its planned launch. Helion instead expects the work to improve the efficiency and competitiveness of subsequent plants. For businesses assessing advanced-energy supply, the practical implication is that semiconductor losses and domestic component capacity can materially shape the economics and scaling path of future power systems.