Five contemporary Chinese science and engineering projects

China's 'man-made' sun fusion device

Energy is one of the major issues currently facing human society. How can we provide sustainable clean energy? The artificial sun project is being developed to find a solution.

As a major national project, the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) fusion device, nicknamed "artificial sun," was approved in 1998. Construction lasted eight years and cost nearly 200 million yuan. It was successfully discharged for the first time on Sept 28, 2006, and has since made unprecedented breakthroughs in energy generation, bringing mankind one step closer to transforming energy into a stable, sustainable and controllable resource.