On Wednesday, Microsoft announced that it has entered into a power purchase agreement with nuclear fusion startup Helion Energy. Under the agreement, Microsoft will buy electricity from Helion in 2028. This is a significant development as it marks the first time a fusion company has signed a deal to sell electricity.

Fusion has been regarded as the holy grail of clean energy for decades due to its potential to generate unlimited clean power like the sun. However, it has remained out of reach until now. With the urgency to respond to climate change, investors have poured $5 billion into private fusion companies.

As part of the agreement, Helion will have its fusion generation device online by 2028 and is expected to reach its target power generation of 50 megawatts or more within an agreed-upon one-year ramp-up period. Once fully operational, the device will produce enough energy to power about 40,000 homes in Washington state.

Although the initial agreement is for 50 megawatts, Helion aims to produce a gigawatt of electricity in the future. Microsoft will pay for the megawatt hours of electricity as Helion delivers them to the grid.

Helion was founded in 2013 and has about 150 employees with headquarters in Everett, Washington. Sam Altman, one of the early and most significant investors in Helion, is also a founder of OpenAI, the artificial intelligence organization that developed the chat platform ChatGPT, in which Microsoft has invested billions of dollars.

Sam Altman sees the two deals as equally important and correlated components of the future he envisions for humanity.

Microsoft agrees to buy fusion power from Sam Altman-backed Helion in 2028