finance
Helion Energy begins construction of Orion fusion plant under 2028 Microsoft power agreement
ZeroHedge reported that Helion Energy began construction on its Orion facility in Malaga, Washington, last year under a 2028 power supply agreement with Microsoft. Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Proxima Fusion also closed large funding rounds to advance their own fusion projects. The developments reflect growing corporate investment in commercial fusion technology.
Jul 16, 11:45 AM·1m read1 source
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Helion Energy broke ground last year on its Orion commercial-scale fusion facility in Malaga, Washington. The site sits near the Columbia River to connect directly into the state's main power network upstream of Microsoft cloud infrastructure. Three years earlier, Helion signed a binding power purchase agreement to deliver at least 50 megawatts of electricity from a fusion plant to Microsoft by 2028.
The contract includes potential financial penalties from Microsoft and Constellation Energy if the deadline is missed. ZeroHedge reported that OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has provided hundreds of millions of dollars in personal funding to Helion. To meet the 2028 target, the company closed a $465 million Series G round last year led by Thrive Capital.
In August 2025, Commonwealth Fusion Systems raised $863 million in a Series B2 round, bringing its total funding to nearly $3 billion. Backers include Nvidia, Google, Planet First Partners, Bill Gates through Breakthrough Energy Ventures, George Soros's Counterpoint Global, and Stanley Druckenmiller.
Commonwealth Fusion Systems is building the SPARC research facility in Massachusetts, a 170,000-square-foot site using high-temperature superconducting magnets developed with MIT.
The company aims for net-positive fusion energy by 2027 and is also designing the ARC grid-scale plant in Virginia to produce about 400 megawatts. Proxima Fusion raised €411 million, reaching a €2.4 billion valuation. Google and German utility RWE each contributed €25 million.
The Munich-based company, a spin-off from the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics, is constructing the Alpha net-energy demonstrator targeted for the early 2030s using stellarator technology.
