Helion Secures $175 Million Federal Grant to Build U.S. Semiconductor Line for Fusion Power

Helion, a Washington-based fusion startup, announced Thursday that it has been awarded a $175 million grant from the U.S. Department of Commerce under the CHIPS Act. The three-year award is intended to fund research, development and manufacturing of advanced semiconductors and power-electronics modules that are critical to the company’s Orion fusion plant, which is slated to begin delivering electricity to Microsoft by 2028.

The grant will finance the construction of an automated semiconductor-module production line in Washington State, the first facility in the United States capable of making the high-voltage, pulsed devices used in Helion’s direct-energy-conversion reactors. Helion’s co-founder and CEO David Kirtley said the line will also serve industries such as manufacturing, wastewater treatment, medicine and defense, noting that “there are no U.S. manufacturers right now that do it.” In addition to the federal award, Helion disclosed a $50 million private investment, bringing its total capital raised to more than $3.2 billion, making it the second-best-funded fusion startup in the sector.

According to Helion, current power-electronics components lose between five and ten percent of the electricity that passes through them. By halving that loss, the company expects to double the net output of its fusion system. Kirtley explained that the efficiency gain is essential to the firm’s approach, which captures electricity directly from the fusion reaction rather than converting heat to steam. The company’s field-reversed configuration injects fuel into an hourglass-shaped chamber, accelerates the plasma with magnetic fields, and then compresses it to temperatures above 100 million degrees Celsius. The resulting plasma pressure drives magnetic fields and capacitors that generate electricity, a process that depends on ultra-fast, high-efficiency semiconductors.

The award allocates more than $100 million to semiconductor and advanced-packaging research in Washington, while roughly $80 million will support tooling, design and process development in Vermont in partnership with GlobalFoundries. GlobalFoundries itself has received over $80 million in federal funds to advance gallium-nitride semiconductor manufacturing, a material widely used in power electronics. Kirtley cautioned that the R&D funded by the CHIPS Act will not be ready in time for Orion’s initial launch, as federal contracts often require months of negotiation. However, he said the work will improve the efficiency of later Helion plants, strengthening their competitiveness in increasingly tight electricity markets.

Beyond fusion, the new semiconductor capability could impact electric-vehicle powertrains, consumer electronics and defense applications such as directed-energy weapons. Bill Frauenhofer, who leads semiconductor investment at the Department of Commerce, highlighted the award’s potential to “convert and deliver power to critical applications in defense, grid transmission, and advanced energy generation.” Despite these broader possibilities, Helion’s leadership maintains that its primary mission remains domestic grid supply and national-energy security.

The next steps for Helion involve scaling the Washington production line, deepening its collaboration with GlobalFoundries, and integrating the next generation of high-efficiency semiconductors into future reactors. As the company moves toward its 2028 delivery target, the industry will watch whether the promised efficiency gains can translate into commercially viable fusion power and a new domestic supply chain for critical power-electronics components.