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Comment by AIPedant | Hacker News Reader

No, of course they don't. This is Sam Altman's fusion company, backed by Microsoft in 2023 with a signed power purchase agreement: either Altman has some serious dirt on Satya Nadella, or (more likely!) Satya Nadella is a gullible idiot who thought "Sam Altman is the Boy Genius Who Invented AI, so he can solve fusion too!"

(Remember this is same same Satya Nadella who offered Altman an unspecified CEO-level position after he got fired... while publicly admitting he didn't know why Altman was fired! If I was a MSFT investor I would be pretty upset about this.)

Presumably 2025 MSFT is more sober-minded about Altman. I wonder if they're gonna try to wiggle their way out of the PPA. Otherwise I am truly baffled.

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Presumably, if it's just a per-agreement to purchase power, there's no downside in the likely case the project implodes.

The problem is that the agreement does not seem to specify that the electricity has to come from fusion![1] This is actually common in renewable PPAs - if the specific project doesn't come online then the provider has to find an alternative. But those are usually done with established providers which have > 0MW overall capacity. Helion does not. If the PPA is fixed amount vs fixed price, Microsoft might end up on the hook for inflated wholesale prices instead of cheap fusion.

FWIW I agree with the author of that Data Center Dynamics post, it's quite likely that MSFT and Helion are essentially in cahoots by stoking investors with vaporware. But it also seems like Altman might have sold Nadella 50MW of magic beans.

[1] https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/opinions/microsoft-and... This is second-hand, the agreement is not public.

Investors gets ruined on PPAs all the time. With renewables, there's usually some sort of wind turbine or solar park attached, so after declaring bankrupcy the new owners can settle out of court and continue production.

Here there's realistically no way to continue electricity production so the assets will likely be chopped up and sold, if possible. Nobody owns anyone anything and Microsoft doesn't have to pay a dime. They won't get their power of course, but there's no downside for them.

These types articles where a PPA contract is confused with an investment is really common, mostly for nuclear and renewables, but that doesn't make them any more true. Microsoft hasn't invested anything, likely because they know this is (pardon the pun) hot air.

>Presumably 2025 MSFT is more sober-minded about Altman.

If nothing else, that, after all the good they had done to him, should do it:

"OpenAi v. Microsoft: Altman ready to sue for unfair competition

...

OpenAI has put a potentially devastating weapon on the table: accusing Microsoft of anti-competitive practices and raising the attention of the Federal Trade Commission. It would be a low blow... "

https://en.ilsole24ore.com/art/openai-v-microsoft-altman-rea...

Ugh. Didn’t realize this was Altman. That’s disappointing.

Seemed like there was a certain amount of magic thinking about neutron damage but a bit less than fission typically does. Guess we’ll see.

It is not exactly Altman’s company. It was founded in 2013 by David Kirtley, John Slough, Chris Pihl, and George Votroubek. These three won the ARPA-E competition around then. Altman funded the company more recently and is on the board. But he isn’t a founder or executive there.

Altman's a major investor, but not the founder.

> either Altman...

Another option is this was to sweeten the pot during OpenAI negotiations.

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