Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, has invested heavily in Helion, a nuclear fusion startup that recently announced a valuation of $5.4 billion after a $425 million Series F funding round. The 12-year-old company has captured the interest of Silicon Valley’s elite and deep-pocketed investors with its ambitious promises and aggressive timeline for achieving commercial nuclear fusion energy. Helion aims to commercialize nuclear fusion technology within the next three years, a goal that significantly outpaces the more conservative decade-long timelines proposed by other companies in the field.
This aggressive timeline has raised concerns among nuclear experts who consider it overly optimistic. “I even think ten years is very ambitious,” said a physics professor at The College of William & Mary. Altman’s involvement has significantly boosted Helion’s profile.
In 2021, he made his largest personal investment to date, contributing $375 million to the company. Helion also announced a power purchase agreement with Microsoft, aiming to start delivering electricity from a fusion plant by 2028.
Bold goal for fusion timeline
The latest funding round saw investments from familiar names like Altman and Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz, as well as new participants like Lightspeed Venture Partners. The capital is intended to accelerate the development of important components like capacitors, magnets, and semiconductors for Helion’s Polaris reactor, its seventh-generation prototype. Despite the excitement around the potential of nuclear fusion to provide vast amounts of clean energy, some scientists remain skeptical of Helion’s transparency and realistic potential.
Critics argue that the company’s secretive nature makes it difficult to assess the true progress of their technology. They don’t share any information; they don’t publish; they don’t provide data,” said a nuclear physics expert. “Such secrecy makes it really challenging for us to assess where they are in the development of their system.”
Investor interest in nuclear fusion has reached record highs, with total funding for fusion companies amounting to $7.1 billion as of last summer.
However, scientists caution that there is a fine line between stoking enthusiasm and managing public expectations. “There should be a lot of responsibility when you give a date,” the expert added. “When these dates are not met, the public may become skeptical, feeling as if they’ve been misled.”
While the future of nuclear fusion remains uncertain, the ambitious targets set by Helion and the significant financial backing it has received highlight the growing interest and high stakes in this field.
