Alexander Sergeev, the scientific director of the National Center of Physics and Mathematics, announced on Nov. 30 that Russia will create the world’s most powerful two-channel 100 PW laser by 2030. “We at the NCFM, within the framework of the XCELS (Center for Extreme Light Fields Research) project, will create the world’s most powerful two-channel 100-petawatt laser by 2030. This will allow us to develop critical components and begin creating an exawatt 12-channel laser. Its power will be such that it will allow scientists to practically `boil’ a vacuum, which no one in the world has ever managed to do. And we will receive new, unique data on the structure of matter, on how the universe appeared, and will understand the first moments of its existence,” Sergeev told TASS, in the Russian original.