Pacific Fusion announced Sept. 26 it has chosen Albuquerque, N.M. as the site for its $1 billion research and manufacturing campus.
The facility at Mesa del Sol is projected to bring over 200 long-term jobs and hundreds of construction jobs, according to New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham’s (D) Sept. 26 press release.
The research and manufacturing campus will contain Pacific Fusion’s demonstration system, which is designed to “achieve net facility gain – more fusion energy out than all the energy stored in the system – by 2030,” according to Pacific Fusion’s press release.
Pacific Fusion is expected to launch its manufacturing operations in New Mexico later this year and construction is set to begin in 2026.
Pacific Fusion said its demonstration system is designed to “deliver 100-fold higher facility gain at 10-fold lower cost than the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, a 1,000-fold leap in practical fusion performance”.
The system also builds on years of scientific and engineering advances at the Z Facility at Sandia National Laboratories.
Along with building a new facility in New Mexico, the company has also been expanding their three existing research and development facilities in Northern California, according to the release.
Pacific Fusion is a nuclear fusion technology startup company headquartered in Fremont, Calif. and was founded in 2023.
On Sept. 18, Pacific Fusion co-founder and president Will Regan, Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) CEO Bob Mumgaard and other fusion experts testified before a House subcommittee on the future of fusion energy in the United States.
Since the hearing, both Pacific Fusion and CFS have announced plans to push the commercialization of fusion. CFS recently signed a power purchase agreement with Eni, a global tech company, worth over $1 billion.