India’s growing fusion effort — from the Aditya tokamak to SST-1, ITER membership, and the planned SST-2 steady-state device — driven by the Institute for Plasma Research.
India’s fusion program is based at the Institute for Plasma Research (IPR) in Gandhinagar, Gujarat. The program began with the Aditya tokamak (1989), a small ohmically heated device (R = 0.75 m, a = 0.25 m) that continues to operate as Aditya-U after upgrades including a new divertor and heating systems.[1]
India joined the ITER project in 2005 as a full partner, contributing approximately 9% of the construction value. Indian industry fabricates ITER’s cryostat (the largest stainless steel vacuum chamber ever built, manufactured by Larsen & Toubro), ion cyclotron heating systems, and diagnostic systems.[2]
India plans SST-2, a larger superconducting tokamak designed as a burning plasma experiment, as the next step before a demonstration reactor. The Indian fusion community has also contributed to DEMO conceptual design studies through the ITER framework.[3]