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TAE Technologies is trying to build a fusion power plant that generates clean electricity, and it also spins off its accelerator know-how into medical and power-management products.
TAE Technologies is a private fusion energy company. Its big bet is that it can build a power plant that makes electricity the way the sun does — by smashing light atoms together and harvesting the energy released — but in a machine small and practical enough to sell to utilities. The company is based in Southern California, and it has been at this for more than two decades, which makes it one of the oldest fusion startups still standing.
Most fusion companies try to tame a donut-shaped cloud of superheated gas called a plasma with enormous magnets. TAE's approach is different: it fires beams of particles from both ends of a long tube to create and hold a hot, stable blob of plasma in the middle. That design grew out of particle accelerator technology, and the company has raised well over a billion dollars from investors including Google and Chevron to keep developing it. Its planned next machine, called Copernicus, is meant to show that the system can produce net energy — a milestone no fusion company has reached commercially. Fusion is a brutally hard business, and TAE is honest that the payoff is years away. There is no product to sell yet and no revenue from electricity. To keep the lights on and put its accelerator expertise to work, TAE has spun out side businesses: TAE Life Sciences, which is developing a targeted cancer radiation therapy, and a power-management arm called TAE Power Solutions that sells battery and power electronics technology. These ventures bring in money and real-world engineering experience while the fusion dream grinds forward.
The prize, if TAE gets there, is enormous. Fusion runs on fuel that is abundant and produces no long-lived radioactive waste and no carbon emissions, so a working plant could sell clean power to utilities and industrial customers for decades. The risk is equally enormous: the physics is unforgiving, the machines are expensive, and competitors like Commonwealth Fusion Systems-style magnet-based startups and government-funded projects like ITER are racing for the same breakthrough. TAE's edge is its unusual reactor design and a long track record of keeping investors interested through a very long wait.
Saved answer · last researched 15 Nov 2026