The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) nuclear fusion reactor maintained a steady, highly confined loop of plasma — the high-energy fourth state of matter — for 1,066 seconds on Monday (Jan. 20), which more than doubled its previous best of 403 seconds, Chinese state media reported.
Not just China. EAST is part of the ITER program so the data will be available to the other participating nations as well – especially since EAST is a testbed for the actual ITER, which is currently being constructed in France.
This is stuff we’ve had international cooperation on since the mid-80s, with China joining in 2003. When we get fusion we all get fusion. Well, all of the rich countries who are participating in the project do.
I’d also like to point out that EAST is not the only promising fusion reactor. A team in Germany is experimenting with stellarators (a competing reactor type; EAST is a tokamak) and are currently working on scaling their current one from its current 100 seconds of operation to 30 minutes.
international collaboration > nationalism, every time