Pacific Fusion is bringing a $1 billion fusion energy campus to Albuquerque, adding more than 200 permanent high-paying jobs, nearly 1,000 construction jobs, and new momentum for New Mexico’s push to become a national leader in advanced energy technology.
The California company’s move, confirmed in an exclusive interview with CityDesk, marks one of the biggest economic development wins in the city’s history. Jobs will range from technicians to engineers and scientists, with salaries between $115,000 and $215,000. Most positions won’t require advanced degrees. Pacific Fusion (PF) will get $10 million in direct incentives and $776.6 million in tax breaks over 20 years. Still, funds are released only when the company meets job creation milestones, with full repayment required if targets aren’t met.
The campus at Mesa del Sol will focus on fusion research and manufacturing, building on decades of research at Sandia National Laboratories, and putting New Mexico at the forefront of the race to develop the clean energy source that powers the sun.
“This billion-dollar project for us is hopefully a first investment in building an industry here,” said Carrie von Muench, PF’s Chief Operating Officer at the announcement ceremony. “We’re going to need thousands of jobs. We’re going to need a lot more engineering work and a lot more scientific work.”
Albuquerque, New Mexico
Roberto E. Rosales / New Mexico News
Taxpayer Protections
The Albuquerque City Council unanimously approved at the Sept. 15 council meeting on PF’s incentive package, approving $787 million in public benefits through two ordinances. The deal includes $10 million in direct incentives and $776.6 million in tax breaks spread over 20 years.
“This is about Albuquerque stepping up and saying we want to show through our actions that we want this location here,” said Councilor Nichole Rogers, who sponsored both Ordinances O-25-96 and O-25-97. “This is the home of this technology and it makes the most sense for it to be here.”
The $10 million in direct incentives includes $9 million from the state through the Local Economic Development Act and $1 million from the city. Most of the savings come from industrial revenue bonds, which cut the company’s property taxes to 20% of the standard rate on real estate and 10% on personal property over the 20-year bond term.
The deal builds in taxpayer protections to make sure PF delivers. Funds are released only when the company meets job creation milestones, starting with 80 jobs by December 2027. If it misses those targets, clawback rules require paying back up to 100% of the money already received.
During the council meeting, Councilor Dan Lewis questioned the oversight mechanisms for a venture capital-funded company founded just two years ago.
Max Gruner, the city’s economic development director, assured the council, “Unless the company is successful, unless the company does what they say they will do, there is no exchange of money.”
PF’s assets, including land, construction and equipment, back the public investment, with the city holding security equal to the funds awarded.
State economic analysts project Albuquerque will see $30.5 million in net benefits over 10 years, giving the city a payback period of about 4 months and 9 days on its $1 million investment. The total economic ripple effect is expected to reach $1.17 billion, accounting for employee spending, supplier purchases, and construction impacts across the region. A separate University of New Mexico study using a different method estimates $29 million in city benefits over 20 years.
The State Investment Council has also invested $1 billion in venture capital firms backing PF, creating additional indirect taxpayer exposure.
That means New Mexico taxpayers have a stake in the company through both direct incentives and state pension fund investments.
Choosing Albuquerque
PF decided to expand beyond California’s Bay Area, where its Fremont headquarters remain, citing collaboration opportunities, lower costs and government support that made Albuquerque stand out, according to von Muench.
The company chose the city for its research and manufacturing campus after weighing sites in both states. Proximity to Sandia National Laboratories was key, since PF’s technology builds on decades of research at Sandia and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories.
“This technology started here from Sandia and from Los Alamos,” said Mayor Tim Keller at Friday’s announcement ceremony. “The idea that we can capture energy that essentially nature is providing us, it just took us this long to figure out how to use it.”
At the heart of that research is Sandia’s Z Machine, the world’s most powerful lab radiation source. It creates some of the most extreme conditions on Earth.
The massive facility stores 23 megajoules of energy — enough to power 100 homes for a few minutes — in 36 banks of 60 capacitors charged to 85,000 volts.
When fired, Z releases about 26 million amps in bursts of roughly 100 nanoseconds, generating around 80 trillion watts — more than all the world’s power plants combined. The current creates magnetic fields that crush tungsten wires thinner than a human hair, heating them to 1.8 million degrees Celsius — hotter than the sun’s surface — and producing intense X-rays.
Scientists use Z to ensure the nuclear weapons stockpile stays safe without live tests, to study how materials react under extreme stress and fusion energy research using magnetic fields to compress fuel-filled metal cylinders in attempts to recreate the conditions that power the sun.
At Friday’s ceremony, Los Alamos National Laboratory Weapons Physics Director Charlie Nakhleh said the work ahead won’t be easy.
“As someone once famously said when he announced a moonshot many years ago, you do it because it’s hard, not because it’s easy,” Nakhleh said. “This is some of the best talent that this nation has to offer.”
PF wants to build on that model.
Like Z, its system will fire huge bursts of electricity through small fuel cylinders to create magnetic fields for fusion. But the company’s machine is designed to be two to three times more powerful and, unlike Z, can fire repeatedly instead of just once.
Three breakthroughs in 2022 made that goal realistic. Researchers at Lawrence Livermore’s National Ignition Facility achieved fusion ignition for the first time, producing more energy than they used. Sandia researchers achieved the second-highest fusion performance ever with the more efficient Z Machine. And PF’s chief technology officer, Keith LeChien, who worked at both labs, invented technology that more than doubles the efficiency of machines like Z, according to von Muench.
“It’s very personal for me. I started my career in fusion right here, 20 years ago, about three miles,” LeChien said at Friday’s announcement. “So we’re bringing that home today.”
Von Muench also praised state and local officials for making Albuquerque a “capital-efficient place to build” for large projects. The company worked closely with officials at multiple levels of city and state government to structure the incentive package.
“We were able to make a really strong case to our board and investors that building here was the right decision for the business,” she said.
She said officials at all levels of government have shown passion for the project’s mission.
“We’ve worked closely with the Governor’s team, with Secretary Black and his team, and with the city to make sure that Albuquerque is a capital-efficient place to build. For large, capital-intensive projects like this one, that’s really important.”
Jobs Pipeline
PF plans to hire 224 permanent employees with salaries ranging from $115,000 to $215,000, most of whom won’t need advanced degrees.
“Many of our jobs — the majority, actually — won’t require advanced degrees,” von Muench said, adding that hiring spans operational, technical and scientific roles.
The four main job categories at the demonstration facility are: physicists, who design experiments, simulate system physics and create targets; engineers, who design and build the facility and its components; technicians, who assemble and operate the machine; and administrative staff, who keep day-to-day operations running smoothly.
“We have a staffing plan that outlines the people that we need to deliver against the milestones,” she said. The company will hire “as many local personnel as possible,” though some specialized roles may require out-of-state workers, she added. It’s also hiring a New Mexico talent acquisition lead to drive local recruitment efforts.
The 225,000-square-foot campus at Mesa del Sol will house research and manufacturing operations, with construction beginning in 2026 and operations starting in 2027.
The company is partnering with UNM, CNM, and local schools to create workforce programs and specialized training. Current job openings will be posted at pacificfusion.com/careers.
Von Muench said the company is focused on both immediate and long-term hiring needs.
The Mesa del Sol Neighborhood Association has endorsed the project, von Muench said. She said, environmental impacts will be minimal and the project will follow standard city and state permitting processes.
Energy Hub Vision
The company’s decision fits the state’s strategy to make New Mexico a national leader in advanced energy technology, leveraging existing strengths while addressing workforce challenges.
The state’s strategy has gained national attention from top investors.
At Friday’s announcement, Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham recounted a recent validation at a global climate conference.
“Chris Sacco, who’s the number one return on investment venture capitalist for carbon-free or renewable energy on the planet…stood up in front of everyone, I had never met him, and said, ‘You that short, adolescent size, Governor, you’re doing it right in New Mexico.’”
“Over 50% of the people who graduate from our colleges and universities leave the state for jobs,” Economic Development Secretary Rob Black said in an interview. “What we’re doing with [PF] is creating the opportunity for those New Mexicans to stay here, build families here and build their careers here.”
Black called New Mexico the “vanguard, the frontier for advanced energy technology worldwide, especially as it relates to fusion.” He said the state is already engaging other fusion companies and PF suppliers to bring equipment and operations to New Mexico, strengthening the supply chain.
“We’re looking at the whole ecosystem around advanced energy that will both help New Mexico meet our clean energy goals but help the rest of the world decarbonize their economies and their energy sector as well,” he said.
The deal is part of a bigger state plan that taps into New Mexico’s strengths: strong universities, national labs and a workforce already skilled in advanced technologies.
Black said the state is positioning itself at the forefront of multiple high-tech industries, including advanced computing, space and defense.
“New Mexico is top of mind for technology,” Black said. “It’s our time to lean on those sectors and really build a future for the next generation of New Mexicans, and we’re excited about the momentum we have from the legislature and from the governor’s leadership.”