Pacific Fusion signs NNSA MOU as Albuquerque fusion build begins

Facilities like this depend on the same modular pulsed-power supply chain Pacific Fusion is scaling at its Los Lunas site

(Image courtesy of Pacific Fusion)

Pacific Fusion broke ground August 25 on a $1 billion Research and Manufacturing Campus at Mesa del Sol in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where it will build a Demonstration System targeting net facility gain by 2030. The Pacific Fusion NNSA MOU adds a national security research dimension to what is already one of the largest single fusion infrastructure investments announced this year.

Pacific Fusion’s Albuquerque facility targets two first-ever milestones

The Demonstration System is designed to reach net facility gain, producing more energy from fusion than the total energy initially stored in the machine, a threshold no facility has yet demonstrated. It is also designed to produce high-yield fusion bursts exceeding 100 megajoules, which Pacific Fusion says makes it the only high-yield fusion facility currently under construction in the United States. The company is developing a pulser-driven inertial fusion system built from modular, mass-manufacturable components, drawing on technology developed at Lawrence Livermore, Sandia, and Los Alamos national laboratories.

The Pacific Fusion NNSA MOU formalises a national security partnership

NNSA Administrator Brandon Williams and Pacific Fusion co-founder and CTO Keith LeChien signed the Memorandum of Understanding Regarding Collaboration on High-Yield Fusion, High-Energy-Density Science, and Related Technical Areas at the groundbreaking. The Pacific Fusion NNSA MOU opens a formal channel on high-yield fusion, high-energy-density science, pulsed-power technologies, and advanced materials, building directly on the pulsed-power expertise developed at Sandia and Lawrence Livermore.

New Mexico investment extends to a second manufacturing site

The Mesa del Sol campus is expected to support around 200 permanent jobs, plus hundreds of construction and regional jobs during the build. Pacific Fusion is separately expanding manufacturing operations in Los Lunas, where it will produce the modular pulsed-power components that feed directly into the Mesa del Sol build, giving New Mexico two linked sites in the same fusion supply chain. Eric Schmidt, former Google CEO and a Pacific Fusion board member, tied the investment to rising electricity demand from AI infrastructure, while New Mexico Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham and Senators Martin Heinrich and Ben Ray Luján joined NNSA and Sandia officials at the groundbreaking.

Next milestone is a full-scale pulser module

Pacific Fusion’s next major technical checkpoint is demonstrating a full-scale pulser module, the core building block of its fusion system, as the company scales production of the modular pulsed-power hardware that underpins the Demonstration System. Chief Operating Officer and co-founder Carrie von Muench tied that milestone to a domestic manufacturing strategy, framing the goal as building the supply chain and jobs for pulsed-power fusion in the US.

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