General Atomics will invest $38 million to expand its fusion research and development operations in Poway, California. The announcement came as part of an extension of the CalCompetes program, a state tax credit signed by Governor Gavin Newsom designed to encourage businesses to invest and create jobs in California.
Separately, in June 2026 General Atomics had already secured an additional $20 million tax credit — also through the California Competes Tax Credit — earmarked for the design and development of a Blanket Component Test Facility (BCTF) at its San Diego campus. The facility will be used to test full-scale fusion blanket components: systems that line the interior of a reactor, capture the energy produced by fusion reactions, and generate tritium, the fuel needed to sustain the process. This represents one of the central engineering challenges on the road to commercial fusion power. The BCTF will leverage the infrastructure of the Magnet Technologies Center in Poway — the same site where the central solenoid for the international ITER project was completed.
That project alone marks a milestone. General Atomics completed the largest and most powerful pulsed superconducting magnet ever built: seven cylindrical modules, totaling roughly 1,000 tonnes when stacked, standing five stories tall. The central solenoid is destined for the ITER facility under construction in southern France, where it is expected to begin operation by 2034. Brian Grierson, Director of Fusion Technologies at General Atomics, describes the BCTF as the first facility of its kind and scale for qualifying full-size engineering prototypes.
The California context matters. The state passed Senate Bill 80, establishing the California Fusion Research and Development Innovation Initiative — the first state-level program of its kind in the United States focused on fusion commercialization. Senate Bill 86 subsequently extended tax exemptions on purchases related to fusion technologies. San Diego is already home to the DIII-D National Fusion Facility, the largest magnetic fusion device in the United States, operated by General Atomics on behalf of the Department of Energy. The region also hosts a Fusion Data Science and Digital Engineering Center, academic programs at UC San Diego and San Diego State University, and a growing network of public and private partners.
General Atomics has been active in fusion research since 1957. Over the decades, the company has built deep expertise in plasma physics, high-field magnets, and precision engineering. The company also participates in the TINEX program alongside SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Colorado State University, UC San Diego, and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, with the goal of advancing inertial fusion toward commercialization. Vice President Anantha Krishnan has described fusion energy as something that “can drive advances in artificial intelligence, manufacturing, and transportation.” With the Blanket Component Test Facility, San Diego is positioning itself as the place where fusion research stops being purely science and starts becoming applied engineering.
