French scientists on Tuesday announced that they had reached a "crucial milestone" in the long road towards nuclear fusion by managing to maintain raging-hot plasma for a record 22 minutes.

ITER (International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor) is a multinational fusion project in France aiming to prove that nuclear fusion can be a viable large-scale energy source. As the world’s largest fusion experiment, ITER is designed to confine and sustain superheated plasma, a critical step toward practical fusion power.

WEST, a tokamak run from the CEA Cadarache site in southern France and one of the EUROfusion consortium medium size Tokamak facilities, was able to maintain a plasma for on 12 February. This was a 25% improvement on the previous record time achieved with EAST,

French research organization CEA reported that on 12 February, the CEA’s WEST tokamak maintained a nuclear fusion plasma for more than 22 minutes, a 25 percent improvement over the previous record. “This leap forward demonstrates how our knowledge of plasmas and technological control of them over longer periods is becoming more

Nuclear fusion aims to control inherently unstable plasma, offering a highly efficient energy source with minimal fuel use and no long-lived radioact

France has taken a major leap forward in the race for nuclear fusion energy, achieving a new world record for plasma duration. On February 12, 2025, scientists at the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA) successfully sustained a plasma reaction for 1,