Commonwealth Fusion Systems gets $85M US grant for chip work

Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) said on Thursday it will receive $85 million from the U.S. government — a CHIPS Act award from the Department of Commerce that also gives the government a stake in the company — to develop advanced semiconductors for the fusion power industry. CFS is racing, alongside other fusion startups, to switch on its first demonstration reactor, Sparc, sometime next year, but getting from one working reactor to dozens of commercial power plants will require far more durable power electronics and a sturdier supply chain.

CFS says the money will fund five initiatives. Chief among them is silicon carbide power electronics — semiconductors already used to manage high voltages in everything from EVs to data centers, and in fusion machines as well, where they help power the superconducting magnets that keep plasma confined inside the reactor. The award will also back next-generation radio-frequency generators used to heat fusion fuel, radiation-hardened electronics for faster reactor control, and an effort to adapt AI chips like GPUs and TPUs for use in power plants.

Brandon Sorbom, CFS’s co-founder and chief science officer, wrote in a blog post that the goal is “a more capable, economical power plant and a stronger U.S. supply chain to build it.” The funding, he said, is meant to strengthen America’s chip and power-electronics industries while speeding fusion power’s path to the electrical grid.

Why it matters

The award ties a chips-manufacturing push to fusion power’s path to the grid, a sign that Washington sees semiconductor supply chains and next-generation energy as linked national priorities worth funding together.