Nuclear Fusion Timeline, 1920–2040: From Eddington to ITER

Fusion research is declassified and international cooperation begins (unverified)

Neutral beam injection breaks the heating barrier (unverified)

ITER is born at the Geneva summit

JET produces controlled fusion power for the first time

TFTR reaches 10.7 MW on a 50:50 D-T plasma

JET DTE1 — a record that stands for 25 years

The ITER Agreement is signed at the Élysée Palace

Wendelstein 7-X first plasma — the stellarator line returns

A 20-tesla high-temperature superconducting magnet — the key to shrinking the machine

Ignition — the Lawson criterion is crossed for the first time

JT-60SA first plasma — the largest operating tokamak in the world

69.26 MJ in JET's final experiments — and then retirement

ITER pushes its schedule back by a decade

Tokamak pulses pass 1,000 seconds — first EAST, then WEST

NIF reaches 8.6 MJ — gain quadruples within two and a half years of ignition

W7-X sets a long-duration triple product record — a different axis entirely

A privately built machine demonstrates measurable D-T fusion for the first time

The US proposes to regulate fusion machines outside the reactor framework

Japan's Q-DEMO — an ITER-sized prototype aiming to generate electricity in the 2030s

Can a reactor make its own fuel? A facility to measure breeding blankets

Every large component of ITER's core machine is now on site