The US Department of Commerce has signed four Letters of Intent (LOIs) with four companies to provide up to $389m in federal R&D awards under the CHIPS and Science Act to support the development of semiconductors and their use within power delivery systems. The funding will be made through the CHIPS Research and Development Office (CRDO). The CHIPS and Science Act is a 2022 bipartisan law that aims to bolster the US semiconductor industry, while CRDO funds critical breakthrough semiconductor innovations.
“The Trump Administration is accelerating American semiconductor innovation to enhance our domestic energy and power resources,” said Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick. “These investments expand domestic research, secure critical supply chains, and create high-paying American jobs.”
The companies that signed the LOI’s include Microsoft-backed fusion start-up Helion, Google-backed start-up Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), Vertical Semiconductor and Sibelco.
Washington-based Helion will receive up to $175m to develop, scale, and establish domestic capabilities in high-voltage power semiconductors and advanced energy power modules designed for high-peak-current pulsed-power applications in fusion power generation.
Unlike traditional tokamak designs, Helion focuses on Field-Reversed Configuration (FRC) and Magneto-Inertial Fusion (MIF) that shoots pulses of plasma together and directly recovers electrical energy using magnetic forces instead of traditional steam turbines.
Helion’s approach of rapid iteration and testing has enabled the company to make some progress toward a commercial fusion machine. Its 7th-generation prototype, Polaris, is intended to demonstrate the first electricity produced from fusion. In July 2025, Helion announced plans to build its eighth prototype, Orion, a 50 MW fusion plant at property owned by the public utility district operators of Rock Island Dam near Malaga, in Chelan County, Washington. The company said the plant is intended to be operational by 2028, supplying power to nearby Microsoft data centres.
According to Helion, the expected $175m federal award will be accompanied by $50m in additional private investment. “Building fusion power plants at scale requires us to accelerate the development of technologies like semiconductors that are critical to making fusion possible,” said David Kirtley, CEO of Helion. “This award combined with additional private investment, totalling $225m, will allow Helion to develop and manufacture advanced semiconductors here in the United States that deliver the efficiency, reliability, and performance our systems require. It’s an important investment in both America’s semiconductor manufacturing base and the future of commercial fusion.”
Also receiving funding is Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), which is backed by Google. CFS based in Devens (Massachusetts) was spun out of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 2018. In parallel with completing the assembly of its SPARC fusion demonstration machine, CFS is continuing to develop, what it intends to be the world’s first grid-scale fusion power plant, ARC, at the company’s Fall Line Fusion Power Station in Chesterfield County, Virginia.
SPARC is a pilot tokamak reactor that is currently roughly 75-80% structurally complete. The team is completing the installation of 18 large 20-tesla high-temperature superconducting magnets to achieve first plasma. CFS intends to utilise SPARC to cross the critical “scientific breakeven” threshold generating more energy from a fusion reaction than it takes to heat the plasma by 2027.
CFS plans to use the $85m in funding to develop semiconductor technologies for robotic maintenance systems that improve the 400 MWe ARC plant performance and to improve radio-frequency power generators that support commercial fusion. ARC is tied to a long-term Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) with Google, which last year committed to offtake 200 MWe from the plant upon its completion.
“This award marks an important opportunity to drive development of semiconductors and power electronics unique to the fusion industry,” said Bob Mumgaard, CFS CEO and Co-Founder. “These innovations will be a vital part of our global effort to deploy commercial fusion.”
Beyond the processors found in computers and phones, a different class of semiconductor controls how electricity moves through everything from electric grids to high-performance computing equipment. They are used to regulate electrical current and enable power converters to raise or lower voltage, helping to manage the large electrical loads required by modern infrastructure.
“These CHIPS R&D awards will support breakthroughs in power semiconductor devices and critical materials,” said Bill Frauenhofer, Executive Director of Semiconductor Investment and Innovation at the Department of Commerce. “Accelerating domestic R&D across these technologies will strengthen America’s ability to convert and deliver power for the grid, advanced data centres, defence systems, and emerging fusion energy.”
While all four companies have signed LOIs, the proposed awards remain subject to final agreements. As a condition of the funding, the Commerce Department would receive minority, non-controlling, and non-voting equity stakes in each company.
