Fusion Energy Will Power the AI Boom

YC’s Gustaf Alströmer explains how Helion Energy plans to deliver fusion electricity to Microsoft by 2028 using a compact pulsed reactor.

• Helion targets a 2028 commercial fusion power delivery contract with Microsoft — a first for the industry.
• Helion uses deuterium + helium-3 fuel instead of the standard deuterium-tritium mix, producing mostly charged particles (easier to capture as electricity).
• Helion generates its own helium-3 in-reactor by fusing deuterium atoms, eliminating the supply chain problem without lunar mining.
• Direct energy recovery via magnetic fields achieves >90% conversion efficiency — versus ~33% for steam-turbine plants.
• The NIF reached fusion breakeven in December 2022, but an economically viable reactor must far exceed breakeven.
• Helion built 7 generations of hardware in under a decade by running design, build, and test in parallel, not sequentially.
• Fusion yields energy from ~0.1% mass conversion — millions of times more energy-dense than fossil fuels per gram of fuel.

2025-06-06 · Watch on YouTube