The U.S. Commerce Department said on Thursday it plans to award $389 million in research and development funding to four companies working on power semiconductor devices and critical materials, in a push aimed at technologies including commercial fusion, Reuters reported. As a condition of the funding, the United States government will receive minority, non-controlling and non-voting equity stakes in the companies.

Source: Reuters via Kat Country 98.9

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said in a statement that the awards will “accelerate American semiconductor innovation to enhance our domestic energy and power resources.” The department said it has signed letters of intent for the four new awards, drawn from a $10 billion semiconductor research fund approved by Congress in 2022, from which it has awarded 19 research grants in recent months. Letters of intent are preliminary and are not yet binding funding agreements.

The largest award goes to Washington-based Helion, which will receive up to $175 million to develop high-voltage power semiconductors and advanced energy power modules for fusion power generation. The semiconductors will power, and draw energy from, the magnets driving Helion's fusion generators. Helion said the award will be accompanied by $50 million in new private investment, and its chief executive, David Kirtley, said building fusion plants at scale requires faster development of technologies such as semiconductors that are critical to making fusion possible.

Massachusetts-based Commonwealth Fusion Systems will receive up to $85 million to develop semiconductors for radio-frequency plasma heating, power electronics, fusion diagnostics and radiation-hardened electronics, and said the funding will also help develop semiconductor technologies for robotic maintenance systems. Its chief executive, Bob Mumgaard, said the innovations will be a vital part of the global effort to deploy commercial fusion.

Vertical Semiconductor will receive up to $73 million to advance its vertical gallium nitride power semiconductors for use in AI data centre racks, while Sibelco will receive up to $56 million to develop next-generation purification for ultra-high-purity quartz, a key material used in the semiconductor supply chain, according to the department's announcement reported by Reuters and summarised by MINING.com.

For Punjabi and Indian readers in the United States, the awards underline how central chips have become to both energy and artificial intelligence: the same power semiconductors that would manage fusion generators are also the parts that feed electricity to the AI server racks spreading across data-centre states such as Virginia, Texas and Arizona.