Helion Energy, a startup backed by OpenAI's Sam Altman and SoftBank's venture capital arm, has started construction on a site for a planned nuclear fusion power plant that will supply power to Microsoft data centers by 2028,

Nuclear fusion energy is one step closer to becoming a reality after Helion Energy broke ground Wednesday on what could become the world's first commercial fusion power plant. Construction in Washington state comes after Helion raised $1 billion for its nuclear fusion plant and signed an agreement to provide electricity to Microsoft by 2028.

The Orion project is set to deliver power to Microsoft data centers in the state by 2028, should development remain on track. The cloud provider signed the world's first Power Purchase Agreement (PPA) for nuclear fusion back in May 2023, with Microsoft expected to offtake up to 50MW of capacity following a one-year ramp-up period.