The NEXT project proposes the technology of High Pressure Xenon Chambers (HPXe) with electroluminescent (EL) readout as a tool to explore the nature of the neutrino through the search for neutrinoless double beta decays in Xe-136. The project started with the successful DBDM and DEMO prototypes. In Fall 2016, a 10-kg radiopure detector, called NEW has started operation at the Canfranc Underground Laboratory in Spain. The next foreseen step is a 100-kg class detector, NEXT-100, capable to reach a background count of less than one count per year in the ROI. In the talk I will present the status of NEW and NEXT-100. I will also discuss how the technology can be extrapolated to the ton scale in order to explore the inverse hierarchy with a future HPXe-EL capable of achieving less than one background count per ton in the ROI.