The ENN fusion group based in Langfang, Hebei province, announced a breakthrough in their Xuanlong-50U hydrogen-boron (HB) reactor, achieving the first fusion reaction before their target date of the end of 2026. Hydrogen-boron fusion has commercialization advantages, such as being aneutronic, having abundant and easily accessible fuel and low cost. However, compared with the usual deuterium-tritium fusion, it requires higher temperature; a far higher combination of plasma density, and confinement time; and more demanding reaction conditions.

The ENN team, using the synergy of high-energy neutral beam injection and radio-frequency waves, greatly increased the non-thermal equilibrium fast proton fraction at the first resonance peak of the HB reaction. (The hydrogen proton fuses with a boron nucleus to produce alpha particles, i.e., helium nuclei, and energy without releasing high-energy neutrons.)