Pacific Fusion has broken ground on a demonstration facility in Albuquerque, New Mexico, aiming to become the first US project to achieve "net facility gain" — generating as much energy as the whole plant consumes, rather than just the fusion reaction itself. The milestone, targeted for 2030, would mark a significant step towards commercial fusion power, which the company hopes to deliver via a full-scale plant in the mid-2030s. No existing device has yet demonstrated net facility gain, making this a closely watched race among well-funded rivals.

The new facility will test Pacific Fusion's approach, which uses coordinated electrical pulses from 156 "pulser modules" to compress a pencil-eraser-sized fuel target until it fuses, initially firing only a handful of shots per day compared with the one-per-second rate a commercial plant would need. Each pulse is expected to generate around 100 megajoules, roughly ten times the output of the US National Ignition Facility, and the site will also host national security-related fusion research. Founded in 2023, Pacific Fusion has raised more than $1 billion in a milestone-based Series A round, giving it runway to plan ahead as it competes with rivals including Commonwealth Fusion Systems, Helion Energy, Proxima Fusion and Inertia Enterprises, all targeting grid-connected fusion power by the mid-2030s.