On March 25, the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC) announced the country's Top 10 Scientific Advances in 2025 during the opening ceremony of the 2026 Zhongguancun Forum Annual Conference in Beijing. The achievement of operating a large-scale scientific facility for controlled nuclear fusion at 100 million degrees Celsius was included on the list.
CNNC's new-generation "artificial sun" HL-3 is the largest and most advanced tokamak device currently in operation in China. At an expert forum held on the same day, Wang Qiuliang, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, noted that HL-3 has continued to set new records in recent years. In 2025, it achieved "dual hundred-million-degree" operation, with an ion temperature of 120 million degrees Celsius and an electron temperature of 160 million degrees Celsius. The fusion-triple product reached the order of 1020, placing China at the forefront of magnetic confinement fusion research. This achievement marks significant progress toward fusion ignition and lays a solid scientific and engineering foundation for future experimental reactors.
The selection was organized by NSFC, with over 150 experts involved. More than 3,000 researchers participated in the real-name online voting from a shortlist of 30 candidates, and the final result was approved following a review by the NSFC Advisory Committee.
