TECH – China is intensifying its quest to harness nuclear fusion, the same process that powers the sun and has outlined plans to build experimental reactors that could start delivering net power by 2030, a milestone that would mark a dramatic step toward carbon-free electricity, according to reporting by Earth.com and analysis from scientific sources. Fusion has long been the “holy grail” of energy because it promises nearly limitless, clean power, but getting fusion fuel to release more energy than it consumes has remained elusive. Now, Chinese researchers are edging closer to that goal by rethinking key plasma physics constraints at their Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) facility.
In January 2026, teams working on the EAST device — nicknamed China’s “artificial sun” — showed that plasma can remain stable at densities higher than previously thought possible, an insight that challenges long-held beliefs about the limits of fusion confinement. They did this by carefully controlling how the superheated plasma interacts with the reactor walls, a factor once thought to be a hard ceiling on performance — but which may instead be a controllable variable. That’s important because fusion power scales with the square of plasma density, meaning tighter packing of fuel ions leads to far more reaction events and greater energy output.
The researchers found that by tuning the startup conditions and wall behavior — reducing errant wall atoms that cool the plasma — the tokamak sustained stable plasma beyond the old density limits without shutting down prematurely. Such control reduces the need for ever-stronger magnetic fields, offering a potentially more cost-effective route to practical fusion reactors.
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China’s broader fusion strategy also includes building the Burning Plasma Experimental Superconducting Tokamak (BEST), a next-generation device currently under construction that officials aim to complete by 2027 and that could be a proving ground for achieving net energy gain — where the energy produced by fusion exceeds the input energy — by the end of the decade.
Beyond EAST and BEST, state-backed initiatives like the larger Xinghuo fusion-fission hybrid project in central China are designed to bridge the gap between experimental science and electrical generation, with ambitions to operate by 2030 and deliver continuous power to the grid.
These developments occur amidst a broader global effort to commercialize fusion — with major projects such as Europe’s ITER also pushing toward long-duration, high-temperature plasma runs — but China’s rapid advances and ambitious timeline set it apart in the accelerating race for clean energy.
