At TechCrunch Disrupt 2026, Brandon Sorbom of Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) and David Kirtley from Helion shared insights on advancing fusion energy from experimental science to commercial electricity generation. CFS is developing SPARC, a fusion demonstration device that will lead to ARC, its commercial power plant. Meanwhile, Helion is building Orion, a 50-megawatt plant slated to provide power to Microsoft by 2028. Both companies recently achieved significant milestones, including multi-billion dollar funding rounds and regulatory progress, underscoring growing momentum in the fusion energy sector.

Sorbom, who co-founded CFS in 2018, detailed the company's trajectory from academic research at MIT to commercial fusion development. CFS has raised $4 billion so far and became the first fusion entity to apply to PJM Interconnection, a major wholesale electricity market, signaling readiness to integrate fusion power into the grid. The SPARC project aims to validate technologies critical for ARC’s commercial deployment, highlighting scientific and engineering hurdles still to be addressed as fusion moves toward utility-scale electricity production.

David Kirtley described Helion’s recent achievements with its Polaris prototype, which reached plasma temperatures of 150 million degrees Celsius, and the ongoing development of the Orion power plant. With $500 million raised in its latest funding round, Helion is on a path to demonstrate commercial fusion power and supply electricity by 2028. The company has also made important regulatory headway, positioning it to bridge the gap between fusion experimentation and delivering reliable energy to industrial customers like Microsoft within a near-term timeframe.

The session at Disrupt emphasized the shared challenges for fusion startups in scaling breakthrough science into dependable power generation. Both Sorbom and Kirtley highlighted what remains to be done to connect fusion plants to the grid at scale, the engineering and regulatory obstacles ahead, and the vital role of sustained investment. With over 10,000 tech leaders attending Disrupt, the conversation offered founders, investors, and technologists a glimpse of fusion’s shifting status from a decades-long promise to a potentially market-ready energy source.