Editor-in-Chief, The Fusion Report
Pacific Fusion CTO Keith LeChien walks us through the Impedance-Matched Marx Generator technology, the company’s milestone-based roadmap to net facility gain by 2030, and a major new announcement: a call for Expressions of Interest inviting external users to access what will be the highest-flux neutron source on the planet.
Is the U.S. power grid headed for a reliability crisis? With electricity demand surging from data centers, EVs, and industrial electrification — while coal plants retire at record pace — regional power shortfalls could hit as early as 2029. We break down what’s driving the strain and what it will take to keep the lights on.
The Moon’s regolith contains an estimated 1 million+ tons of helium-3, a fuel prized for its potential in aneutronic fusion reactors. But He-3 sits in parts-per-billion concentrations, requiring massive mobile extraction systems to heat lunar soil to 700–900 °C. Companies including Interlune, ispace, and Black Moon Energy are developing plans to scout, extract, and return He-3 to Earth, with timelines ranging from 2029 to 2040. The Fusion Report examines what early lunar mining operations would look like, who’s working on it, and the technical hurdles standing between the Moon and commercial fusion fuel.
The global fusion energy industry has attracted roughly $17 billion in private capital to date, with an estimated $10.7 billion raised outside of China and $6.5 billion within it. These are significant numbers, but they represent only a fraction of what will be needed to bring commercial fusion power plants online, where individual facilities could require billions in combined equity and debt financing. We examine the funding landscape, identify the major capital sources, and assess where the next wave of investment is likely to originate.
Helion Energy achieved two major milestones with their Polaris prototype: measurable deuterium-tritium fusion and a private-sector plasma temperature record of 150 million degrees Celsius. With their Orion production facility under construction in Malaga, Washington, Helion is closing in on delivering 50 MW of commercial fusion power to Microsoft.
Inertia Enterprises has launched as the newest commercial fusion player with a $450 million Series A led by Bessemer Venture Partners. Co-founded by Twilio’s former CEO Jeff Lawson, NIF physicist Dr. Annie Kritcher, and fusion plant designer Prof. Mike Dunne, the company aims to scale the National Ignition Facility’s proven laser-based approach into gigawatt fusion power plants within the next decade using a thousand compact, mass-produced lasers firing at fuel targets ten times per second.
The global data center market reached $319.5 billion in 2024 and is on track to nearly triple to $988 billion by 2035, with electricity consumption projected to double by mid-decade. Natural gas currently leads as the near-term power source of choice, but nuclear fission, battery storage paired with solid-state transformers, and fusion energy are all competing for a role in the long-term supply picture. This analysis examines where each technology stands today, the tradeoffs operators face between speed-to-deploy and decarbonization, and why data center investors are already placing bets on fusion despite its longer timeline to commercial scale.
Solar energy is reshaping global power systems through rapid grid-scale deployment, advanced battery storage, and photovoltaic breakthroughs including bifacial panels and perovskite cells. While fusion energy remains the long-term solution for baseload power, solar’s modularity and speed of deployment offer critical lessons for fusion commercialization. Until pilot fusion plants come online, solar leads in filling the growing electricity gap.
The 19th-century Current Wars are getting a 21st-century sequel. As AI workloads push rack densities beyond what traditional AC distribution can efficiently handle, data center operators are turning to high-voltage DC power. The efficiency gains are substantial: DC architectures can eliminate up to 20% of energy losses while dramatically reducing the copper and cooling infrastructure required at each rack. Let’s examine the technical drivers behind the shift and who’s leading the transition.
Type One Energy’s leadership built most of the world’s stellarators over the past two decades, from Wisconsin’s HSX to Germany’s W7-X. Now operating across six locations on three continents, the company is leveraging this unmatched stellarator experience, access to superconducting magnets and exascale computing, and a “mile deep, inch wide” strategy to position itself as a fusion technology OEM rather than just another power plant developer.
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