Fusion Developer Helion Wins $175 Million in US Funding to Build Its Own Power Chips
Fusion developer Helion has been awarded $175 million in federal funding to research, develop and manufacture advanced semiconductors and power electronics for its fusion power plants, according to TechCrunch, which reported the award on October 22, 2026.
The money is a three-year award from the U.S. Department of Commerce under the CHIPS Act, the federal program that supports domestic semiconductor manufacturing and research. Helion has also signed a Letter of Intent for the $175 million CHIPS Award, a preliminary document that sets out the terms of the arrangement ahead of a final agreement. The company announced a separate $50 million private investment alongside the federal award and did not disclose the identity of the investor.
The geography is split between two states. More than $100 million of the award will support semiconductor and advanced packaging R&D in Washington State, where Helion plans to build a new automated semiconductor module, packaging and testing production line. Approximately $80 million will go to R&D in Vermont, in partnership with GlobalFoundries.
The technical motivation is a loss problem. Helion's current power devices lose roughly 5% to 10% of the electricity that flows through them. Helion CEO David Kirtley has said that cutting that semiconductor power loss in half would double the power output of the company's fusion system. The conversion electronics sit between the plasma machine and the grid, so every percentage point recovered at that stage flows straight through to deliverable output. Think of it as a leaky pipe between a tank and a tap: the less that escapes along the way, the more reaches the outlet.
Helion's first power plant, named Orion, is intended to supply electricity to Microsoft by a 2028 deadline. Reuters reported in July 2025 that Helion had started construction on the site for the plant. Helion also states that it is building the world's first fusion power plant to deliver clean, reliable and abundant electricity to the grid, a claim that describes the company's objective rather than a completed milestone.
Helion has raised more than $3.2 billion in total funding, according to the TechCrunch report. The company's website describes a $465 million Series G round raised to meet surging global demand for power, and says Helion has awarded funding to 20 research institutions to accelerate scaled fusion deployment. Helion's February 2026 newsroom announcement stated that its Polaris machine is the first privately funded fusion energy machine to operate with deuterium-tritium fuel, a blend of two hydrogen isotopes and the fuel mix that commercial fusion designs generally target.
Kirtley is co-founder and CEO of the company.
In my view, the semiconductor thread is the part of this story that deserves the closest attention from engineers. Fusion companies have typically been discussed in terms of plasma physics, magnets and materials. Here the bottleneck is power electronics, and the company is choosing to own the device supply chain rather than wait for it. Whether a fusion developer can run a semiconductor packaging and test line at the quality and yield that such a pipeline demands is a question the announcement does not answer.
The broader context here is the convergence of two demand curves. Hyperscale cloud operators want firm, low-carbon power on a predictable schedule, and fusion developers need electronics that waste less of what their machines produce. If the Washington and Vermont work reduces conversion losses as Helion intends, the gain would reach the grid as usable megawatts rather than as a line item in a chip roadmap. Those are the stakes, and the 2028 Orion date will show whether the plan holds.
