The big machines

The facilities pushing fusion forward.

From the largest experiment ever built to compact machines chasing net energy, these are the landmark labs where the work happens. Each links to the team that runs it.

Tokamak 🇫🇷

ITER

Saint-Paul-lès-Durance, France

The world’s largest fusion experiment, a 35-nation collaboration aiming to produce 500 MW of fusion power from 50 MW of input heating.

Under construction Visit →
Laser / Inertial 🇺🇸

National Ignition Facility (NIF)

Lawrence Livermore National Lab, USA

The 192-beam laser that first achieved fusion ignition (scientific energy gain) in December 2022.

Operating Visit →
Stellarator 🇩🇪

Wendelstein 7-X

IPP Greifswald, Germany

The most advanced stellarator ever built, demonstrating steady-state plasmas with record energy-confinement performance.

Operating Visit →
Tokamak 🇬🇧

JET (Joint European Torus)

Culham, United Kingdom

Held the fusion energy record (69 MJ in a pulse) before its final 2023 campaign; now being repurposed and studied.

Retired (2023) Visit →
Tokamak 🇺🇸

DIII-D National Fusion Facility

General Atomics, San Diego, USA

The largest operating tokamak in the U.S. and a national user facility for advanced divertor and control research.

Operating Visit →
Tokamak 🇨🇳

EAST

ASIPP, Hefei, China

The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak, known for record long-pulse, high-confinement plasmas over 1,000 seconds.

Operating Visit →
Tokamak 🇰🇷

KSTAR

KFE, Daejeon, Korea

Korea’s superconducting tokamak, famous for sustaining 100-million-degree plasmas for record durations.

Operating Visit →
Tokamak 🇯🇵

JT-60SA

QST, Naka, Japan

The largest operating superconducting tokamak in the world, a Japan–Europe partnership supporting ITER.

Operating Visit →
Tokamak 🇫🇷

WEST

CEA Cadarache, France

A superconducting tokamak (the former Tore Supra) testing ITER-like tungsten walls; it recently held a plasma for a record 22+ minutes.

Operating Visit →
Stellarator 🇯🇵

Large Helical Device (LHD)

NIFS, Toki, Japan

One of the world’s largest heliotron/stellarator devices, studying steady-state magnetic confinement.

Operating Visit →
Tokamak 🇺🇸

SPARC

Commonwealth Fusion Systems, USA

A compact high-field tokamak designed to be the first to achieve net fusion energy gain (Q > 1) commercially.

Under construction Visit →
Spherical Tokamak 🇬🇧

MAST Upgrade

UKAEA Culham, United Kingdom

A spherical tokamak testing the innovative Super-X divertor for handling exhaust heat.

Operating Visit →
Pulsed Power 🇺🇸

Z Pulsed Power Facility

Sandia National Labs, USA

The world’s most powerful pulsed-power machine, driving magnetized-target fusion experiments.

Operating Visit →
Want the full map?

200+ labs, one directory

ITER maintains a directory of fusion research institutions in more than 40 countries, the most complete map of where this work happens.

Open the worldwide fusion map →