China has reached a milestone in its pursuit of controlled nuclear fusion, with its Huanliu-3 tokamak-type magnetic fusion experiment surpassing 100 million degrees Celsius for both atomic nuclei and electrons for the first time.

China National Nuclear Corporation (CNNC) said the experimental device, known as HL-3 at the Southwestern Institute of Physics in Chengdu, recently reached a nuclear plasma temperature of 117 million degrees Celsius* and an electron temperature of 160 million degrees Celsius.