Chinese fusion scientist leading the EAST superconducting tokamak and the CFETR reactor design at the Institute of Plasma Physics in Hefei — central to China's ambition to build the world's first fusion power plant.
Yuntao Song is a senior physicist and engineer at the Institute of Plasma Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences (ASIPP) in Hefei, Anhui Province. He has risen to become one of the principal leaders of China's domestic fusion program, with responsibility spanning the operation of the Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) and the design of the China Fusion Engineering Test Reactor (CFETR). His career represents the maturation of China's fusion effort from a learning program to a world-leading enterprise.
ASIPP, where Song has spent his career, is the institutional anchor of Chinese fusion research. The institute operates EAST, contributes major components to ITER, and leads the design of CFETR — a machine that, if built on schedule, could become the first fusion device to demonstrate electricity generation at reactor scale. Song's role in guiding all three activities places him at the nexus of China's fusion strategy.[1]
EAST, which achieved first plasma in 2006, was the world's first tokamak to employ superconducting toroidal and poloidal field coils simultaneously. Song has been central to the machine's operation and progressive upgrades, which have pushed EAST into increasingly reactor-relevant operating regimes. Under his technical leadership, EAST has achieved a series of milestones in long-pulse plasma operation that no other device has matched.
These achievements are not merely records for their own sake. Long-pulse operation tests every subsystem of a tokamak — heating, fueling, exhaust, diagnostics, control, and first-wall materials — in ways that short-pulse machines cannot. EAST's long-pulse campaigns under Song's direction have provided data on plasma-wall equilibration, impurity accumulation, current profile evolution, and steady-state scenario development that are directly relevant to ITER and CFETR.[2]
Song has served as a principal leader of the CFETR design effort, China's ambitious plan to build a fusion engineering test reactor that bridges the gap between ITER and a commercial power plant. CFETR is designed to operate in two phases: an initial phase producing 200 MW of fusion power to demonstrate tritium self-sufficiency, and a second phase at 1 GW to demonstrate electricity generation at near-commercial scale.
The CFETR design reflects lessons learned from both EAST operations and China's substantial contributions to ITER component manufacturing. Song's involvement ensures that operational experience from EAST — particularly in long-pulse scenarios, divertor physics, and superconducting magnet technology — feeds directly into the reactor design. The engineering integration required for CFETR represents a step change from experimental physics to power-plant engineering, and Song's dual role in both programs provides continuity that few other fusion leaders worldwide can match.[3]
China's contributions to ITER include the manufacturing of superconducting conductor, correction coils, magnet feeders, and other major components, with ASIPP serving as the primary fabrication and testing facility. Song has been involved in overseeing the quality and delivery of these contributions, which represent some of the most technically demanding manufacturing tasks in the ITER project. This work has built industrial capability in superconducting magnet technology, vacuum systems, and precision engineering that directly benefits the CFETR program.
A significant thread running through Song's career is expertise in superconducting magnet systems for fusion applications. The progression from EAST's niobium-titanium (NbTi) and niobium-tin (Nb3Sn) magnets to ITER's massive Nb3Sn coils to the advanced magnet concepts being considered for CFETR traces a technological evolution that Song has participated in at each stage. His understanding of the engineering challenges — joint design, quench protection, cooling systems, and the integration of magnets with plasma-facing and heating systems — informs CFETR's magnet design choices.
Song's leadership places him at the center of what may be the world's most aggressively funded national fusion program. China's commitment to fusion energy — reflected in rising budgets, expanding facilities, and the CFETR timeline — gives his work a strategic dimension that extends beyond physics. The possibility that China could operate the first fusion power plant ahead of Western and private-sector competitors has made Song and ASIPP subjects of intense international attention, and has influenced the pace and ambition of fusion programs worldwide.