Photo by Aperture Vintage on Unsplash (illustrative)
Fusion research took two notable steps in 2025. On 12 February 2025, the WEST tokamak run by France's CEA in Cadarache kept a plasma going for 1,337 seconds, a new duration record for a tokamak. On 3 June 2025, Germany's Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics reported that its Wendelstein 7-X stellarator had set a new record for a key performance measure over a long pulse.
Key facts
WEST held a hydrogen plasma for more than 22 minutes using 2 MW of heating, about 25% longer than the record set weeks earlier by China's EAST.
On 22 May 2025, Wendelstein 7-X sustained a record 'triple product', the main yardstick of fusion performance, for 43 seconds.
IPP says this puts the stellarator on a par with the best tokamaks for long plasma pulses.
In the same campaign, Wendelstein 7-X reached an energy turnover of 1.8 gigajoules over 360 seconds, up from 1.3 gigajoules in 2023.
Why it matters
A future fusion power plant will need to hold extremely hot plasma steadily for long periods, not just for brief bursts. These results give engineers real data on keeping plasmas stable and protecting machine walls, which feeds directly into the ITER project and later designs.
Worth noting
Neither machine produced net energy: WEST ran on hydrogen, not fusion fuel, and both records concern how long and how well plasma can be held. Commercial fusion power is still many years away.