Everett-based Helion breaks ground on ‘world’s first fusion power plant’

On the banks of the Columbia River in the small town of Malaga, Washington, Everett-based Helion has broken ground on what it says is “the world’s first fusion power plant.”

Helion, a nuclear fusion startup backed by Big Tech, said the facility is prepared to begin delivering electricity generated by nuclear fusion by 2028 — and Microsoft has already purchased all of it.

Helion chose Central Washington for the plant because of the cluster of data centers that call the region home. It’s become a hotspot for the massive server farms that underpin everything we do online because of the abundant, cheap hydropower supplied by the Columbia River dams.

But as the artificial intelligence boom drives unprecedented demand for ever larger, more energy-hungry data centers, new sources of power are needed. The tech industry is pinning its hopes on fusion, which promises to be cleaner and cheaper than traditional nuclear power.

Fusion works by using extremely high heat and pressure to fuse nuclei, “which is the same process that happens in our sun,” said Helion CEO David Kirtley.

“This is the first time that people are talking about and now demonstrating that you can do fusion in a way that is commercially relevant for electricity, that is low cost, that is efficient, and that is reliable,” Kirtley said. “That's what we are showing and what we are building right now.”

Helion is leasing land from the Chelan County Public Utilities District that’s part of its Rock Island Dam property. The location is just up the road from a new data center Microsoft is the process of building and an old Alcoa aluminum plant that’s currently being dismantled. It’s a stark example of the industries of the future moving into a small town, filling the void left behind by manufacturing, though neither Helion nor the data center will employ as many people as the old plant did.

Helion expects to have about 10 to 50 full-time employees at the Malaga site. Its focus is building a scalable, renewable power source to meet growing energy needs and reduce reliance on fossil fuels.

“ Our goal is to generate power as low cost as possible,” Kirtley said.