---
type: claim
domain: energy
description: "CFS (tokamak, HTS magnets, Q~11 target, ARC 400MW early 2030s) and Helion (FRC, pulsed non-ignition, direct electricity conversion, Microsoft PPA, Polaris 2024/Orion breaking ground 2025) represent the two most credible private fusion pathways with fundamentally different risk profiles"
confidence: experimental
source: "Astra, CFS fusion deep dive April 2026; CFS corporate, Helion corporate, FIA 2025 report, TechCrunch, Clean Energy Platform"
created: 2026-04-06
secondary_domains: ["space-development"]
depends_on:
  - "Commonwealth Fusion Systems is the best-capitalized private fusion company with 2.86B raised and the clearest technical moat from HTS magnets but faces a decade-long gap between SPARC demonstration and commercial revenue"
  - "fusion contributing meaningfully to global electricity is a 2040s event at the earliest because 2026-2030 demonstrations must succeed before capital flows to pilot plants that take another decade to build"
challenged_by: ["both could fail for unrelated reasons — CFS on tritium/materials, Helion on plasma confinement at scale — making fusion portfolio theory moot; TAE Technologies (aneutronic p-B11, $1.79B raised) and Tokamak Energy (UK, spherical tokamak, HTS magnets) are also credible contenders that this two-horse framing underweights"]
---

# Helion and CFS represent genuinely different fusion bets where Helion's field-reversed configuration trades plasma physics risk for engineering simplicity while CFS's tokamak trades engineering complexity for plasma physics confidence

The fusion landscape has 53 companies and $9.77B in cumulative funding (FIA 2025), but CFS and Helion are the two private companies with the clearest paths to commercial electricity. They've made fundamentally different technical bets, and understanding the difference is essential for evaluating fusion timelines.

**CFS (Commonwealth Fusion Systems) — the confident physics bet:**
- **Approach:** Compact tokamak with HTS magnets (proven confinement physics, scaled down via B^4 relationship)
- **Key advantage:** Tokamak physics is the most studied and best-understood fusion approach. ITER, JET, and decades of government research provide a deep physics basis. CFS's innovation is making tokamaks smaller and cheaper via HTS magnets, not inventing new physics.
- **Demo:** SPARC at Devens, MA. Q>2 target (models predict Q~11). First plasma 2027.
- **Commercial:** ARC at James River, Virginia. 400 MW net electrical. Early 2030s. Full output pre-sold (Google + Eni).
- **Funding:** ~$2.86B raised. Investors include Google, NVIDIA, Tiger Global, Eni, Morgan Stanley.
- **Risk profile:** Plasma physics risk is LOW (tokamaks are well-understood). Engineering risk is HIGH (tritium breeding, materials under neutron bombardment, thermal conversion, complex plant systems).

**Helion Energy — the engineering simplicity bet:**
- **Approach:** Field-reversed configuration (FRC) with pulsed, non-ignition plasma. No need for sustained plasma confinement — plasma is compressed, fuses briefly, and the magnetic field is directly converted to electricity.
- **Key advantage:** No steam turbines. Direct energy conversion (magnetically induced current from expanding plasma) could achieve >95% efficiency. No tritium breeding required if D-He3 fuel works. Dramatically simpler plant design.
- **Demo:** Polaris (7th prototype) built 2024. Orion (first commercial facility) broke ground July 2025 in Malaga, Washington.
- **Commercial:** Microsoft PPA. Target: electricity by 2028 (most aggressive timeline in fusion industry).
- **Funding:** >$1B raised. Backed by Sam Altman (personal, pre-OpenAI CEO), Microsoft, Capricorn Investment Group.
- **Risk profile:** Engineering risk is LOW (simpler plant, no breeding blankets, direct conversion). Plasma physics risk is HIGH (FRC confinement is less studied than tokamaks, D-He3 fuel requires temperatures 5-10x higher than D-T, limited experimental basis at energy-producing scales).

**The portfolio insight:** These are genuinely independent bets. CFS failing (e.g., tritium breeding never scales, materials degrade too fast) does not imply Helion fails (different fuel, different confinement, different conversion). Helion failing (e.g., FRC confinement doesn't scale, D-He3 temperatures unreachable) does not imply CFS fails (tokamak physics is well-validated). An investor or policymaker who wants to bet on "fusion" should understand that they're betting on a portfolio of approaches with different failure modes.

**Other credible contenders:**
- **TAE Technologies** ($1.79B raised) — aneutronic p-B11 fuel, FRC-based, Norman device operational, Copernicus next-gen planned, Da Vinci commercial target early 2030s
- **Tokamak Energy** (UK) — spherical tokamak with HTS magnets, different geometry from CFS, targeting pilot plant mid-2030s
- **Zap Energy** — sheared-flow Z-pinch, no magnets at all, compact and cheap if physics works

## Evidence

- CFS: SPARC milestones, $2.86B raised, Google/Eni PPAs, DOE-validated magnets (multiple sources cited in existing CFS claims)
- Helion: Orion groundbreaking July 2025 in Malaga, WA (Helion press release); Microsoft PPA May 2023; Polaris 7th prototype; Omega manufacturing facility production starting 2026
- TAE Technologies: $1.79B raised, Norman device operational, UKAEA neutral beam joint venture (TAE corporate, Clean Energy Platform)
- FIA 2025 industry survey: 53 companies, $9.77B cumulative funding, 4,607 direct employees
- D-He3 temperature requirements: ~600 million degrees vs ~150 million for D-T (physics constraint)

## Challenges

The two-horse framing may be premature. TAE Technologies has more funding than Helion and a viable alternative approach. Tokamak Energy uses similar HTS magnets to CFS but in a spherical tokamak geometry that may have advantages. Zap Energy's Z-pinch approach eliminates magnets entirely. Any of these could leapfrog both CFS and Helion if their physics validates.

More fundamentally: both CFS and Helion could fail. Fusion may ultimately be solved by a government program (ITER successor, Chinese CFETR) rather than private companies. The 53 companies and $9.77B represents a venture-capital fusion cycle that could collapse in a funding winter if 2027-2028 demonstrations disappoint — repeating the pattern of earlier fusion hype cycles.

---

Relevant Notes:
- [[Commonwealth Fusion Systems is the best-capitalized private fusion company with 2.86B raised and the clearest technical moat from HTS magnets but faces a decade-long gap between SPARC demonstration and commercial revenue]] — the CFS side of this comparison
- [[high-temperature superconducting magnets collapse tokamak economics because magnetic confinement scales as B to the fourth power making compact fusion devices viable for the first time]] — CFS's core technology advantage
- [[the gap between scientific breakeven and engineering breakeven is the central deception in fusion hype because wall-plug efficiency turns Q of 1 into net energy loss]] — Helion's direct conversion may avoid this gap entirely
- [[tritium self-sufficiency is undemonstrated and may constrain fusion fleet expansion because global supply is 25 kg decaying at 5 percent annually while each plant consumes 55 kg per year]] — CFS faces this constraint, Helion's D-He3 path avoids it
- [[fusion contributing meaningfully to global electricity is a 2040s event at the earliest because 2026-2030 demonstrations must succeed before capital flows to pilot plants that take another decade to build]] — both companies are the critical near-term proof points

Topics:
- energy systems
