(Yicai) March 10 -- Energy Singularity announced that the Chinese nuclear fusion energy startup has made a significant breakthrough in the field of high-temperature superconducting magnets and set a magnetic field record in the process.

The Shanghai-based company said today that its state-of-the-art large-bore high-field magnet, named Jingtian, has successfully completed its first experiment, generating an unprecedented 21.7 tesla magnetic field. That set a new record for large-bore D-shaped HTS magnets.

The previous record of 20.1 tesla, set in 2021, was achieved by the SPARC TFMC magnet jointly developed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and US fusion energy company Commonwealth Fusion Systems.

State-owned Energy Singularity is a pioneer in nuclear fusion energy, which is seen as a having the potential to provide nearly limitless amounts of clean power without nuclear waste. Companies in the field are trying to find solutions to problems such as extreme temperatures, complex design, and high energy input.

Jingtian is about three meters long and weighs 7.5 tons. Its main mission is to validate key technologies and manufacturing processes for the toroidal field magnets required by the firm’s next-generation tokamak device, the HH170, which aims to achieve a deuterium-tritium equivalent energy gain greater than 10.

Controlled nuclear fusion is hailed as the unlimited energy of the future, with deuterium-deuterium fusion representing a near-infinite source of clean power. The success of the Jingtian magnet lays a foundation for further research into strong-field magnets suitable for future D-D fusion reactors.

Founded in 2021, Energy Singularity focuses on high-field, high-confinement and compact HTS tokamak systems and control software with commercial power generation potential.

Last week, the company raised almost CNY1.8 billion (USD240.3 million) from two major power companies, China Nuclear Power and Zheneng Electric Power. Other investors included gaming giant miHoYo and Nio Capital.

Editor: Tom Litting