Shanghai Lingang plans to incubate more "artificial suns"

Interface News reporter | Fang Zhuoran

Interface News editor | Zhuang Jian

“Lingang is currently conducting preliminary docking with 2–3 companies related to nuclear fusion. In the future, it will continue to attract high-quality projects based on different technical routes and enrich the industrial ecosystem.” On March 31, Hang Yong, a relevant official with the Lingang New Area Administrative Committee in Shanghai, told Interface News about the above plan.

Nuclear fusion has become a key future industry direction supported by Lingang. At present, it has gathered multiple core companies and supporting capabilities. Through multidimensional measures such as improving the industrial chain, policy support, and coordinated funding, Lingang is building a national-leading industrial hub. Hang Yong said that last year, Nuova Fusion, which uses the field-reversed configuration (FRC) magnetic compression technology, officially became operational in Lingang, forming a technical differentiated and complementary relationship with existing enterprises.

The development positioning of the nuclear fusion industry and Lingang is highly compatible. With the rapid development of the AI industry, demand for computing power has surged, placing immense pressure on electricity consumption. Nuclear fusion power generation can precisely meet the energy needs of computing power centers. The large number of chip and integrated circuit companies clustered in Lingang have ongoing and sizable demand for energy, and the landing of the nuclear fusion industry will effectively help close this energy gap.

In February this year, “Honghuang 70,” the world’s first fully high-temperature superconducting tokamak installation independently developed by Lingang New Area company Energy Singularity, successfully achieved steady-state long-pulse plasma operation for 1337 seconds, becoming the only commercial nuclear fusion company globally to achieve thousand-second-class long-pulse operation—far exceeding the earlier commercial firms’ previously limited hundred-second-class operating ceiling.

This breakthrough not only proves the engineering feasibility and stability of the fully high-temperature superconducting technology route in fusion devices, giving the “acceleration key” for the commercialization and deployment of nuclear fusion, but also highlights Lingang’s leading advantage in its future energy industry layout.

A tokamak is dubbed the “artificial sun.” The center of its device is a ring-shaped vacuum chamber. Around it, coils are wound; when powered, a massive helical magnetic field is generated inside, heating the plasma to very high temperatures, thereby achieving nuclear fusion.

More than 100 tokamak devices have already been built worldwide, but currently only four fully superconducting devices are in operation. Of these, three use the previous generation of low-temperature superconducting materials. “Honghuang 70,” independently developed by Energy Singularity, is the only tokamak among them built using fully high-temperature superconducting materials.

Energy Singularity founder and CEO Yang Zao, in an interview with Interface News, said, “This breakthrough is not only a comprehensive test of Energy Singularity’s full-system capabilities; it also means that the team has passed stringent thousand-second-level tests in terms of the experimental operation of plasma physics, the reliability of control algorithms, and the overall engineering stability of the device and all its subsystems.”

The “Honghuang 70” project officially started in March 2022; in March 2024, the construction of the tokamak device was completed in the Lingang New Area. In June of the same year, “Honghuang 70” achieved its first plasma discharge. Although it ran for less than 1 second, it verified the basic feasibility of all the device’s subsystems.

The major breakthrough of “Honghuang 70” is inseparable from Lingang New Area’s planning and all-round support for the nuclear fusion industry.

As an important supporting force for Lingang’s controllable nuclear fusion industrial ecosystem, the Shanghai Electric Nuclear Power Group has already completed its deployment. The Shanghai Electric Nuclear Power Group can not only provide supporting services for traditional nuclear power plants. In the field of nuclear fusion, it can also build key components such as the overall device and the “green wall” layer, providing integrated supporting services for relevant companies.

Lingang is currently planning to focus on introducing upstream and downstream enterprises in core fusion links such as high-temperature superconducting materials, first-wall materials, and power supply systems, to improve the full industrial-chain layout from core materials and key components to device integration.

Hang Yong said that Lingang not only hopes to attract core enterprises clustering up—represented by Energy Body Circuit and fusion device manufacturing—but is also committed to driving the full-scale deployment of supporting industrial chains such as superconducting materials, magnet materials, power supply systems, and cooling systems. It aims to form a complete industrial ecosystem from core devices to upstream and downstream supporting partners, helping support the upgrading of future industries.

“The nuclear fusion industry is at a critical stage of transitioning from the laboratory to engineering applications. It is expected that around 2035 or 2045 it will enter the power generation stage. With the existing industrial foundation, supporting advantages, and policy support, Lingang is at the forefront in Shanghai’s nuclear fusion industry layout. In the future, it will continue to build momentum and drive this future industry toward high-quality development.” Hang Yong said.

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