Commonwealth Fusion vs Helion Energy

Commonwealth Fusion Systems and Helion Energy are both American startups aiming to realize commercial thermonuclear fusion to generate cheap, clean and virtually unlimited energy. They are focusing on compact reactors instead of huge (government-funded) facilities like ITER. Both use magnetic plasma confinement (albeit with different approaches), employ new materials and high-temperature superconductors and aim to launch the first commercial facility in the 2030s.

But Commonwealth Fusion Systems (founded in 2018) is a spinoff of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which has received backing from companies such as Bill Gates' Breakthrough Energy and Google. It is relying on the classic tokamak design, but with new, powerful high-temperature superconductor magnets.

Helion Energy (2013) uses a Field-Reversed Configuration mechanism to directly compress plasma and convert its energy into electricity without turbines. Their reactor Polaris compresses and collides two plasma rings which results in a magnetic pulse, inducing electric current in a circuit. The company plans to use Deuterium-He3 fuel (meaning it will require Helium-3 mining on the moon). Helion Energy has received significant investment from OpenAI CEO Sam Altman.