Fusion power innovator Helion Energy is building its seventh-generation fusion prototype to prove that its technology will deliver energy to the grid. It is also constructing a commercial power plant in Central Washington and establishing manufacturing operations to assemble future facilities.
David Kirtley is the CEO and co-founder of Helion. He said, “Our goal is not just to do fusion, not just to make energy, but to make electricity.”
Helion’s multi-track strategy is developing the prototype while standing up industrial-scale production. It reflects the belief that speed will be key once fusion is proven viable.
The company recently signed a lease near its Everett headquarters for a one hundred and sixty-six thousand square-foot space dubbed Omega. Helion will install an assembly line there to construct the thousands of capacitors needed to deliver massive surges of electricity to its fusion generator and capture the energy it produces.
Sofia Gizzi is the Helion’s director of production. She said, “Helion is a manufacturing company. It’s not an R&D company. It’s not a science experiment. It’s very much a manufacturing company.”
Helion has charted rapid growth in recent years. It has landed huge investments, hitting a headcount of more than five hundred employees, and spreading its footprint across an industrial region north of Seattle.
That expansion is built on the promise of fusion although no company or research institution has yet demonstrated it can create affordable electricity from fusion, the so-called Holy Grail of clean energy.
Data centers and AI expansion, plus economy-wide efforts to electrify transportation, building heating and cooling, and industrial operations are all hungry for clean power.
Microsoft is investing heavily in AI-related data center infrastructure. It has agreed to purchase the electricity produced by the fifty-megawatt Orion plant.
Melanie Nakagawa is Microsoft’s chief sustainability officer. She said, “While the path to commercial fusion is still unfolding, we’re proud to support Helion’s pioneering work here in Washington state as part of our broader commitment to investing in sustainable energy.
Constructing commercial fusion power plants requires more than physics breakthroughs. It also demands industrial muscle.
The company has long intended to keep its manufacturing and assembly in-house. This approach avoids external supply chain disruptions during the pandemic, could help skirt fluctuating tariffs and allow for quick adjustments as facility designs and operations are fine-tuned.
Standing inside Omega’s freshly painted space just near Helion’s headquarters, Gizzi explained that the proximity between engineering and manufacturing is strategic.
Gizzi added, “If you want to scale quickly, and if you want to be able to build an intelligent manufacturing process, you have to have [manufacturing] engineers with a really good understanding of how the thing works. And you have to have design engineers with a really good understanding of what’s hard about manufacturing.”
Helion’s manufacturing-first philosophy aligns with a broader push to restore U.S. production capacity. Washington state congressional leaders Senator Maria Cantwell and Representative Suzan DelBene recently introduced the bipartisan Fusion Advanced Manufacturing Parity Act. This legislation would provide large tax credits for fusion supply chain components.
Cantwell said in announcing the bill last month, “The state of Washington is the world’s leading hub for fusion energy, which one day soon could provide vast amounts of the type of power we need to keep electricity prices down and increase America’s economic competitiveness.”
Outside of public support, Helion raised four hundred twenty five million dollars in January specifically to finance its construction of the Omega facility. Investors in the funding round included OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, steel manufacturer Nucor, Mithril Capital, SoftBank and others.
Helion will begin installing assembly line equipment inside the Omega facility early next year with production starting in late 2026.
The facility will help produce the roughly two thousand five hundred capacitor units needed for the Orion power plant in Malaga, Wash. They will be using both workers and robotics that include off-the-shelf and custom automation technology to significantly expedite the current processes.
Gizzi said, “These high-volume lines are not for our Orion machine, but for the next machine. A factory operating at 50% of its design capacity or less can spit out Orion, no problem. But we’re really looking beyond that into 2030.”