EVERETT, Wash. — It’s a bold ambition to try and replicate on Earth the physics that power the sun and stars.
But clean power innovators Helion Energy Doing much more than that. It is building its seventh-generation Fusion prototype to prove its technology will deliver power to the grid while simultaneously building a commercial “big bet” power plant in Central Washington and establishing manufacturing operations to assemble future facilities.
It all depends on Hellion’s technology to work as planned.
“Our goal is not just to do fusion, not just to make energy, but to make electricity,” said the Hellion CEO and co-founder. David Cartley.
Helion’s multi-track strategy — developing prototypes while stalling industrial-scale production — reflects the belief that speed will be critical if fusion is to prove effective.
The company recently signed a lease for a 166,000-square-foot space near its Everett headquarters, dubbed Omega, where the company will set up an assembly line to produce the thousands of capacitors needed to deliver the massive surges of electricity to its fusion generators and capture the energy it generates.
Big Bet
“Helion is a manufacturing company,” said Sofia GGSenior Manager of Production at Hellion. “It’s not an R&D company. It’s not a science experiment. It’s a manufacturing company.”
To meet its lofty goals, Helion has charted rapid growth in recent years — landing huge investments, hitting a headcount of more than 500 employees and spreading its footprint across an industrial zone north of Seattle that’s home to aviation titan “big bet” BoeingAll of this expansion is built on the promise of fusion — even though no company or research institute has yet demonstrated that it can generate affordable electricity from fusion, the so-called holy grail of clean energy.
If it works, the demand is there. Data center and AI expansion, as well as economy-wide efforts to electrify transportation, building heating and cooling, and industrial operations, are hungry for clean energy.
Microsoft, which is investing heavily in AI-related data center infrastructure, has agreed to buy electricity generated by the 50-megawatt Orion plant.
Big Bet
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,” said Melanie Nakagawa, Microsoft’s chief sustainability officer, when Orion broke ground in July.
Production techniques
Building fusion plants requires more than advances in physics—it demands industrial muscle. That’s where Hellion’s Omega advantage comes in.
The company has long aimed to keep its manufacturing and assembly in-house. This approach can avoid supply chain “big bet” disruptions during a pandemic, help skirt fluctuating tariffs and, perhaps most importantly, allow for rapid adjustments as facility design and operations are fine-tuned.
Standing inside Omega’s freshly painted, bright white space just minutes from headquarters, GG explained that the proximity between engineering and manufacturing is strategic.
Big Bet
“If you want to scale quickly, and if you want to be able to create an intelligent manufacturing process, you have to be [manufacturing] Engineers with a really good “big bet” understanding of how the thing works,” Gizzi said. “And you have to have design engineers with a really good understanding of what’s difficult about manufacturing.”
Hellion’s manufacturing-first philosophy aligns with a broader push to restore American manufacturing capacity. Washington state “big bet” Congress leader Sen. Maria Cantwell and Rep. Suzanne Delben recently introduced bipartisan leaders. Fusion Advanced Manufacturing Parity Actwhich will provide larger tax credits for fusion supply chain components.
Washington state is the world’s leading center for fusion energy, which could someday soon provide the vast amounts of energy we need to keep electricity prices low and America’s economic competitiveness up,” Cantwell said. announcement Last month’s bill.
Looking to 2030
Beyond public support, Helion raised $425 million in January to specifically finance its manufacturing build-out at the Omega facility. Investors in the round included OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskowitz, steel maker Nucor, Mithril Capital, SoftBank and others.
The Fusion company will begin installing assembly line equipment inside Omega early next year, starting production in late 2026.
The facility will help manufacture about 2,500 capacitor units needed for the Orion Power Plant in Malaga, Wash. using both manpower and robotics to significantly “big bet” accelerate current processes that include off-the-shelf and custom technologies.
With scale-up manufacturing capabilities, Hellion is focused on the future and what comes after the first plant is operational.
“This high volume line is not for our Orion machine, but for the next machine,” Gizzi said. “A factory can spit out Orion at 50% of its design capacity or less, no problem. But we’re really looking beyond that to 2030.”