“To achieve self-sustaining plasma and enable fusion power plants to generate electricity continuously, a fusion device must operate highly efficiently in a stable state for thousands of seconds,” said Song Yuntao, the institute’s director.

Achieving viable nuclear fusion on Earth will require plasma temperatures hotter than the sun to compensate for our planet’s smaller mass, according to scientists. The temperature at the core of the sun is about 15 million degrees Celsius, according to the mainstream estimate.

Monday’s breakthrough recreated the conditions required for future fusion reactors. “Crossing the threshold of 100 million degrees and 1,000 seconds demonstrated our capability to simulate the operational environment of a future fusion power plant,” Sun told state news agency Xinhua.