LLNL and Inertia sign R&D partnership agreements

Yesterday, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Inertia Enterprises announced a strategic research and development partnership to address fusion challenges including laser development, fusion target design, and target fabrication technologies on the path to a commercial power plant.

The cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) between LLNL and Inertia covers the research, development, and prototyping of advanced optical materials and semiconductor laser diodes, the development of new manufacturing techniques for high-cost or long-lead components, and design options and experimental validation for a potential beamline architecture to drive Inertia's planned high-power laser system.

The lab and company have also signed two strategic partnership projects (SPPs)-one focused on fusion target design and the other on target fabrication technologies. According to Inertia, through these projects the company will work on scaling the performance and production of the fusion fuel targets used at the National Ignition Facility (NIF), and LLNL staff will apply the same inertial confinement fusion design codes used to achieve ignition to help Inertia design its high-gain fusion target with greater confidence.

"We are committed to ensuring that the 60 years of public investment, fusion leadership, and scientific breakthroughs achieved here don't stay in the laboratory. This agreement, along with other public-private partnerships, is how we accelerate that effort," said Kim Budil, director of LLNL. "This partnership positions LLNL's world-leading expertise in inertial fusion science, laser technology, physics design, and target fabrication to directly inform the industrial-scale development that commercial fusion demands."

Inertia, formed in 2025, is a private San Francisco Bay Area fusion power start-up with ties to LLNL. It was cofounded by Andrea "Annie" Kritcher, who was part of the team that ran the first controlled fusion experiment to achieve ignition in December 2022 at LLNL's NIF. To date, NIF is the only facility in the world to successfully demonstrate fusion net energy gain.

In 2025, Inertia said it had "a substantial and multifaceted relationship [with LLNL,] including research agreements, to advance low-cost, mass-production fusion target design and fabrication."

"Decades of public investment in fusion science have created a foundation that only America's national labs could have built. Inertia exists to take that foundation and do what the private sector does best: build at scale and deliver commercial impact," said Jeff Lawson, CEO and co-founder of Inertia. "This partnership with LLNL ensures we're doing that with the full weight of their scientific expertise behind us."