Shanghai Fusion Reactor Runs for 22 Minutes Straight

The dream of endless clean energy just got 1,337 seconds closer to reality.

Energy Singularity, a Shanghai fusion startup, announced their HH70 tokamak sustained a steady plasma current for over 22 minutes. That's the longest ever achieved by a commercially built nuclear fusion device.

Nuclear fusion recreates the reaction that powers the sun, generating energy without carbon emissions or long-lived radioactive waste. Scientists have pursued this "artificial sun" for decades as the ultimate solution to climate change and energy scarcity.

The company launched in 2021 as China's first private fusion venture. By June 2024, they had built and activated the world's first high-temperature superconducting tokamak, a doughnut-shaped chamber that contains super-heated plasma using powerful magnetic fields.

Since then, they've run 5,755 experiments to perfect the technology. The secret to this latest achievement lies in their AI-powered plasma control system, which continuously adjusts conditions to keep the reaction stable.

"This breakthrough is not merely about time," said Dong Ge, the company's co-founder. The real win is proving that advanced superconducting magnets and AI controls can work together at engineering scale, making future fusion power plants both cheaper and more efficient to build.

The cost factor matters enormously. Energy Singularity aims to produce fusion electricity at prices matching or beating traditional coal and gas power, making clean energy accessible worldwide rather than a luxury technology.

The Ripple Effect

The HH70 device represents more than scientific progress. With over 96 percent of its components manufactured locally in China, it demonstrates that fusion technology can be built affordably without depending on international supply chains.

Shanghai is now positioning itself as a global fusion hub, pursuing multiple approaches including both magnetic confinement and laser fusion. This competition between different fusion methods accelerates innovation across the entire field.

Energy Singularity is already developing their next device, the HH170, designed to achieve "net energy gain," the holy grail moment when fusion produces more energy than it consumes. That milestone would prove fusion power is commercially viable.

Other fusion projects worldwide are racing toward similar goals, with multiple companies and national labs reporting major advances in recent years. The field has shifted from "if" fusion will work to "when" it becomes a practical energy source.

The 22-minute plasma milestone matters because future fusion power plants will need to run continuously for months or years. Proving the technology can maintain stable conditions for extended periods removes a critical engineering barrier.

Clean, abundant energy could transform everything from manufacturing to agriculture to water desalination in developing nations. The stakes couldn't be higher as the world works to eliminate fossil fuels.

Every second of sustained fusion brings us closer to a world powered by the same force that lights the stars.