A nuclear fusion machine in southern France has set a new record for plasma duration, beating a record set in China earlier this year.

On 12 February, the “West” machine, at the Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission’s (CEA) Cadarache site, maintained plasma for more than 22 minutes – a total of 1,337 seconds.

In so doing, it broke the previous record achieved in January by China’s East machine of 1,066 seconds by over 25%.

In the process the plasma reached a temperature of 50 million °C.