China, the United States, and Russia are all putting their best efforts into researching "controlled nuclear fusion," and whoever first creates a controllable nuclear fusion "artificial sun" will become the new superpower of the future. According to relevant media reports, China's "controlled nuclear fusion" has successfully operated stably for 1066 seconds at a temperature of 100 million degrees. This is the incomparable superiority of China's current political system.
The United States focuses on laser inertial confinement in nuclear fusion, with the main facility being the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California. This device uses 192 high-power lasers to strike a small fuel pellet, instantly compressing and igniting the fusion reaction. In 2022, they announced achieving "ignition," where the output energy exceeded the input, which was a milestone. However, the duration at that time was extremely short, just a few nanoseconds, and it was still far from practical use. Fast forward to 2025, NIF hasn't been idle. On April 7th, they set a new record: an input of 2.08 megajoules of laser energy, and an output of a full 8.6 megajoules, with an energy gain of 4.1 times. This means that for every unit of energy invested, more than four units can be recovered, and the efficiency is rising rapidly. On May 17th, there was another report saying that they doubled the power output, and the number of experiments increased from dozens last year to hundreds. The U.S. Department of Energy has invested 134 million dollars to support this research, and also collaborated with private companies. Companies like Focused Energy are developing commercial prototypes based on NIF technology. However, the U.S. approach focuses on high-intensity short-pulse, and steady-state long-term operation is not its strong suit; it is more about laboratory verification, and building a power plant is still a long way off. Their advantage lies in laser technology and materials science, which are top-tier globally, but the cost is high, and repeatability challenges are significant. The 2025 IAEA report also points out that private fusion financing in the U.S. accounts for more than half of the global total, showing the ambition of capital.
Russia, on the other hand, is a traditional expert in tokamaks, with the T-15MD from the Kurchatov Institute as their ace. This device upgraded from the T-15 of the 1970s, with a magnetic field strength of 2 Tesla, a large plasma volume, and the goal of simulating the operating environment of ITER. In March 2025, they achieved a plasma current of 500 kiloamperes on the T-15MD, with temperatures reaching 40 million degrees, and the working range of the magnetic field was also expanded. Rosatom, a nuclear giant, plans to install auxiliary heating, current maintenance, and diagnostic systems on the T-15MD between 2025 and 2030, and full-power operation is imminent. Russia has a long history of fusion research, and was leading during the Soviet era, but due to economic and international sanctions in recent years, the progress has slowed down a bit. The 2025 IAEA World Fusion Outlook report mentions that Russia has ideas for hybrid reactors, planning to use fusion neutrons to drive fission, shortening the commercial path. Overall, however, their investment is relatively conservative, relying more on state projects, and international cooperation is hindered by geopolitical factors.
China's fully superconducting tokamak, EAST, known as the "artificial sun," is located at the Hefei Institutes of Physical Science. On January 20, 2025, this device made a big announcement: under a temperature of 100 million degrees, the high-confinement mode plasma ran steadily for 1066 seconds, with a thermal power input exceeding 12 megawatts, breaking its own 2023 record of 403 seconds, and setting a new world record for tokamak devices. This is no small achievement. A thousand-second steady-state operation is a key threshold for the commercialization of fusion, meaning that the device can maintain a "burning" state for a long time without frequent restarts, greatly improving efficiency. EAST uses fully superconducting magnets, which are low-cost and have strong magnetic fields. The team also optimized radio frequency heating and impurity injection, suppressing long-standing issues such as edge localized modes. Media coverage was overwhelming, with Xinhua News Agency and People's Daily both featuring it on the front page. The International Atomic Energy Agency also quickly issued a statement acknowledging it. Following this, on February 24th, the French WEST device reached 1337 seconds, grabbing some headlines, but China's early start and rapid iteration have accumulated over 150,000 discharges, making data accumulation solid. In March 2025, this achievement was selected as a major scientific and technological achievement at the Zhongguancun Forum, showing the country's emphasis. On Hefei Scientific Island, not only does EAST exist, but the compact BEST device began assembly around the National Day holiday, and the CFETR China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor plan is accelerating, aiming for the operation of a demonstration reactor by 2035. China's investment in fusion remains among the top globally, and in 2025, China accounted for the majority of the $9.7 billion in global commercial fusion financing. It is developing independently while conducting international cooperation, contributing 9% of the components to the ITER project, and also leading the electromagnetic system of the EAST.
Compared to them, the three countries each have their own focus. The U.S. approach using lasers is aggressive, suitable for high-density ignition, but scaling up is difficult; Russia's tokamak has a solid foundation, and is a stamina player, but resources are tight; China, on the other hand, is thriving comprehensively, with EAST's steady long-pulse directly addressing the pain points of commercialization. The IAEA report simulation shows that by 2050, at least 10 fusion power plants will be deployed globally, and China is expected to account for 30% of them. This competition is not only about technology but also about the industrial chain and talent. The U.S. brings in private enterprises, China relies on national coordination, and Russia sticks to its old ways. What is the result? From 30 seconds in 2012 to 1066 seconds in 2025, China has made rapid progress, and behind this is the efficiency of centralized efforts to handle major tasks, with research funds directly targeting the pain points, and cross-unit collaboration being smooth. By contrast, the U.S. faces budget cuts and additions in Congress, and private enterprises spend money quickly but dispersively; Russia, due to international isolation, has less data sharing. Fusion is a high-barrier, high-failure-rate endeavor, but China's system allows projects to avoid detours, iterate quickly, and achieve stable results.
Certainly, the road is still long. For fusion to be commercialized, hard bones such as material heat resistance and tritium self-sufficiency must be solved. The 2025 report predicts that the experimental reactor stage will occur before 2030, and China's CFETR is exactly aligned with this. Although NIF in the U.S. has a high gain, converting it to a tokamak will take time; after the T-15MD in Russia reaches full power, it may catch up, but it started later. In short, this race to put all one's resources into the game, China speaks with actual data, and the 1066 seconds are not just numbers, but the confidence in energy independence. Who will laugh last? See who can move the laboratory to the power grid first.
Original text: www.toutiao.com/article/1848373731063817/
Statement: The article represents the views of the author himself.