Google has signed a deal to purchase 200 megawatts of electricity from a nuclear fusion project, backing what could become a future power source for its energy-hungry AI and data operations.
The tech giant also expanded its investment in Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS), the MIT spin-off building the ARC fusion power plant in Chesterfield, Virginia.
This deal is the world’s largest direct corporate agreement for fusion energy. Although fusion has yet to prove commercially viable, Google is betting on its potential to enhance the energy sector.
CFS, established in 2018, has set its sights on generating grid-ready electricity from its 400MW ARC project by the early 2030s. For context, the 200MW agreement with Google represents enough energy to power a small city.
The financial details were not made public, but the company described Google’s latest investment as “comparable” to the $1.8 billion round raised in 2021.
Fusion, usually called the “holy grail” of energy, replicates the same process that powers the sun, fusing light atomic nuclei at extreme temperatures to produce enormous energy.
Unlike traditional nuclear fission, fusion doesn’t emit high levels of radioactive waste and poses far fewer long-term risks. But it’s notoriously difficult to achieve and sustain on Earth.
“There are some serious physics and engineering challenges that we still have to work through to make it commercially viable and scalable,” said Michael Terrell, Google’s head of advanced energy. “But that’s something that we want to be investing in now to realise that future.”
CFS’s approach hinges on a compact tokamak, a doughnut-shaped device that confines plasma using high-temperature superconducting magnets. This is the same core technology being tested in their SPARC demonstration machine in Massachusetts.
If successful, it would be a step forward in bringing fusion energy out of the lab and into commercial reality.
Fusion has long been considered decades away. However, recent breakthroughs, like the 2022 experiment at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory that briefly achieved net energy gain, have spurred new optimism. Commonwealth CEO Bob Mumgaard believes the gap is closing and remains confident in his team’s direction.
“Without partnership and without being bold and setting a goal and going for it, you won’t ever reach over those challenges,” Mumgaard said. He described the ARC plant as a proving ground for what he calls the “teething phase” of fusion, the stage where reliability, maintenance, and performance of fusion machines are tested in real-world conditions.
Beyond scientific curiosity, the urgency to scale clean and abundant energy is growing. Data centres, artificial intelligence, and electrification are driving global energy demand to new heights.
Google has pledged to match its electricity use with carbon-free energy 24/7 by 2030, and fusion is now being added to the mix alongside investments in geothermal and advanced nuclear.
Google had previously funded CFS and another startup, TAE Technologies in the fusion sector. But this new agreement shows an added layer of conviction, not just to fund innovation, but to commit to buying the energy, once it becomes available.
The move is a similar one by Microsoft, which signed a smaller deal last year to purchase 50MW from Helion, another fusion startup. But Commonwealth appears to be further along and better capitalised, having attracted billions in funding and backing from several major investors.
Of course, not everyone is sold. Some experts argue commercial fusion could still be 15 to 30 years out. Yet with advances in materials science, supercomputing, and magnetic technology, analysts say the timeline is looking more realistic than ever.
Google, for one, is done waiting.
“We want to make sure that we’re investing in that as well,” Terrell said, acknowledging that while fusion may still be a long-term play, “the longer term is now feeling like it’s not as far away.”
