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Helion Energy has crossed a threshold that the fusion industry has chased for decades. Its seventh-generation Polaris reactor reached **150 million degrees Celsius** — 50% hotter than the previous private-sector record — and became the first privately built machine to achieve measurable deuterium-tritium fusion. The company is now on a direct path to delivering commercial fusion electricity to Microsoft by 2028.The milestone, announced in February 2026 and confirmed through independent review, marks a decisive moment in the race to prove that fusion power can move from laboratory curiosity to grid-scale reality.
Polaris is a 19-meter machine housed inside Helion's "Ursa" facility in Everett, Washington. It uses 2,500 capacitor banks delivering **100 GW of peak power** per pulse to compress plasma at extreme temperatures. Over 3,800 diagnostic sensors monitor every pulse in real time.
::keyfacts
- **Temperature:** 150 million °C (13 keV) — 10x hotter than the Sun's core
- **Fuel:** First private machine to use deuterium-tritium (D-T) fuel
- **Pulse target:** 1 pulse per second (up from 1 per 10 minutes in predecessor Trenta)
- **Location:** Everett, Washington — the Ursa facility
- **Independent review:** Data verified by Dr. Ryan McBride, University of Michigan
::/keyfacts
The temperature figure matters because **100 million degrees Celsius** is widely considered the floor for commercially viable fusion. Polaris blew past that mark by 50%, giving engineers significant headroom to optimize plasma confinement and energy capture.
## How Helion's Approach Is Different
Most people picture fusion reactors as giant donut-shaped tokamaks — the design behind ITER, the $22 billion international project in France that has been under construction since 2010 and still hasn't produced first plasma. Helion took a radically different path.
::versus
| Feature | Helion (Polaris) | ITER (Tokamak) |
|---|---|---|
| **Design** | Field-Reversed Configuration (FRC) | Tokamak |
| **Size** | 19 meters | 73 meters tall |
| **Energy capture** | Direct energy recovery (like regenerative braking) | Steam turbine cycle |
| **Cost to date** | ~$1.1 billion raised | $22+ billion spent |
| **Timeline to power** | 2028 (contracted) | 2035+ (estimated) |
| **Commercial model** | Private, PPA-backed | Government consortium |
::/versus
Helion's Field-Reversed Configuration creates a "smoke ring" of plasma that gets compressed by magnetic fields. When the plasma expands after fusion, it pushes back against those fields and generates electricity directly — no steam, no turbines, no boiling water. It is the electrical equivalent of regenerative braking in an electric vehicle.
This direct conversion approach is why Helion believes it can build reactors roughly the size of a shipping container that produce **50 megawatts** — enough to power approximately 40,000 homes.
For full coverage, visit https://www.linos.ai/science/helion-energy-polaris-150-million-degrees-fusion-2026/
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