As the Second Ministerial Meeting of the International Atomic Energy Agency World Fusion Energy Group conference, with 1,000 participants, opened in Chengdu, China on Oct. 14, the Global Times featured, “China’s New-Generation ‘Artificial Sun’ Under Upgrade for Burning Plasma Tests: Expert”, that same day, which presented a summation of China’s fusion program, particularly its Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST).
Zhong Wulu, an assistant director of the Southwest Institute of Physics of the China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC), and head of its Fusion Science Division, stated: “To realize commercial fusion power, six stages must be completed, and currently we are at the third one.” Zhong cited the six stages as, “principle exploration, scaled experiments, burning plasma experiments, experimental reactors, demonstration reactors, and commercial reactors.” Huang Mei, CNNC’s chief scientist and head of the electron cyclotron project told the Global Times, that although its roadmap expects fusion power generation by some time around 2050, “We are working hard to bring that day forward as much as possible.”
In stage 3 of this process, China’s EAST Tokamak achieved on Jan. 20, 2025, a steady-state operation of high-confinement plasma for 1066 seconds (17 and three-quarter minutes), reaching temperatures of over 180 million degrees Fahrenheit (82 million degrees Celsius). However, the remarkable fusion accomplishment has not yet achieved breakeven, the point at which a fusion reaction produces more energy than the energy directly used to heat the plasma, or ignition, wherein the reaction becomes self-sustaining.
