The Hefei tokamak, which has set numerous records, is now scheduled to achieve one only previously set by NIF
The Fusion Report that’s covered a lot of breakthroughs with the performance of fusion machines. Higher temperatures, higher pressures, density ceilings and time of plasma or just a few of the ones that we’ve covered. Now the fusion machine that is the current record holder for a number of these achievements, China’s Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST), known as the Artificial Sun and located in Hefei, is set to crack an achievement held by only one other fusion machine on the planet: ignition, held by the National Ignition Facility (NIF) located at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL; note that NIF achieved ignition on December 5, 2022.).
A List of EAST’s Current Records
EAST has a number of current records for a tokomak fusion machine; among them are :
- January 20, 2025: Steady state confinement of an ultra-hot plasma that lasted for 1066 seconds at a temperature exceeding 100 million degrees C. In doing so, it broke its own previous record of 403 seconds in 2023.
- January 1, 2026: EAST cracked the Greenwald theoretical plasma density limit, which posited that too much matter would make the plasma unstable. When EAST broke the Greenwald Limit, it had 1.3 to 1.6 times more fuel than was believed could be squeezed into a tokamak.
EAST is scheduled to add a new achievement – ignition – to this list of accomplishments in 2027. While EAST will not be the first fusion machine to achieve ignition (it will potentially be the second), it will be the first that achieves ignition under continuous operation, as NIF achieved ignition in a single burst, as a prototype laser inertial confinement fusion (ICF) machine. In competition with it to get that same record is another tokamak, the Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) Smallest Possible Affordable Robust Compact (SPARC) machine, which is also expected to achieve ignition in 2027. It is interesting to note that SPARC is the precursor to CFS’s larger production prototype Affordable Robust Compact (ARC) machine, in the same way that EAST is the precursor to China’s Burning Plasma Experimental Superconducting Tokamak (BEST). Interesting as well, both ARC and BEST are expected to actually generate electricity, as first of a kind (FOAK) machines, which will lead to production electrical power plants.
What Does It Take to Achieve Fusion Ignition in a Tokamak?
Achieving fusion ignition in a tokamak requires combining three things at once:
- Very high plasma temperature (roughly 100M °C, or 10-20 keV);
- Enough particle density (1014 particles per cc); and
- Enough confinement time for the plasma to keep itself hot.
The combination of these three measures is known as the Lawson Criteria, also known as the triple product (nTt). For deuterium-tritium (D-T) fuel, achieving the Lawson Criteria requires the temperature to exceed 100M °C, while the magnetic fields must hold the fuel dense and stable for long enough that fusion reactions happen faster than the energy leaks away. In practical terms, that means controlling turbulence, preventing the plasma from touching the vessel walls, and minimizing losses from radiation and other cooling effects.
It also takes a machine that can actively heat and shape the plasma with great precision. Tokamaks use magnetic confinement plus auxiliary heating methods such as neutral beam injection and radio-frequency heating to push the plasma into the ignition regime, and the device must maintain the right balance of pressure, current, and magnetic stability without triggering disruptions. Once alpha particles from fusion start depositing enough heat back into the plasma, the process can become self-sustaining; ignition is the point where that internal heating covers the cooling losses and external heating is no longer needed.
How Close Are China EAST and CFS SPARC to Ignition?
To put it succinctly, this is the sixty-four dollar question. In one sense, EAST is closer simply because it has existed for several years, while SPARC not yet operational. China’s EAST is closer on the plasma-physics side of ignition than it is on full ignition itself. Recent reporting says EAST has pushed into a higher-density operating regime and that this is a meaningful step toward ignition, but EAST’s public milestones are still framed as breaking density limits and improving stability rather than already reaching a self-heating burning plasma.
SPARC is closer in the sense that its stated design target is to reach Q > 1 in 2027, meaning it aims to produce more fusion energy than the power needed to sustain the process, and its HTS magnets are meant to provide the stronger magnetic fields needed for that goal. But Q > 1 is not the same as full ignition, because a burning plasma is defined by self-heating from fusion exceeding external heating, and the DoE notes that this is the regime where fusion alpha heating becomes dominant. So, in plain terms, EAST is demonstrating promising pathfinding physics, while SPARC is a more aggressive ignition-adjacent engineering demonstration that still has to prove it can cross into burning-plasma behavior. While we hope this is not the case, it’s quite possible that neither EAST nor SPARC will achieve true ignition.
Conclusion: Will We See Ignition in 18 Months?
It is incredibly difficult to understate the importance of achieving ignition. Besides showing that someone else other than NIF can achieve ignition, if either China EAST or CFS SPARC are successful, it will show that magnetic confinement fusion (MCF) machines can actually work; in that sense it’s not necessarily important which of the two are successful as long as at least one of them is. From a pragmatic standpoint, I’m certain that CFS’s investors would like to see SPARC achieve ignition successfully in 2027, and doing so ahead of China EAST will only make accomplishments sweeter. For the Chinese, it would be a great accomplishment if they were first in 2027.
For the world, having both CFS SPARC and China EAST as successes (and let’s throw Helion into the mix as well just for fun) will clearly demonstrate that fusion is not only possible, but achievable in the very near term. While we might not be so lucky as to kick off a fusion gold rush in the stock market like that for AI, ignition would increase investor interest significantly. And most importantly, ignition wouldn’t only increase interest in CFS, it would increase interest in other companies as well. There are several companies that are good candidates to achieve commercial fusion, such as Inertia, Pacific Fusion, Type One Energy, Germany’s Proxima Fusion, and the UK’s Spherical Tokamak for Energy Production (STEP) program. Having several companies with commercial fusion solutions would not be the worst thing in the world 😊.
