Physicists beat a record with a magnetic field 700,000 times stronger than the earth

Under the right conditions, the superconducting magnets allow electricity to flow essentially not disturbed, producing intense magnetic fields for a variety of uses, including nuclear fusion experiments. Naturally, a larger magnetic field gives scientists more space to explore – something that could soon be available for physicists in China, thanks to the creation of a record superconductive magnet.

In a declaration of September 28, the Plasma Institute of Plasma of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) announced that it had developed an entirely dominant magnet. This magnet successfully generated a record magnetic field with a force of 35.1 Tesla, which is 700,000 times stronger than the natural magnetic field of the earth. The land lasted about 30 minutes, according to the press release.

The previous record, which reached 32.35 Tesla, was also established by the case, but by a different division, the Institute of Electric Engineering.

Chinese scientists announced on Sunday that they had managed to generate a constant magnetic field of 351,000 Gauss – more than 700,000 times stronger than the geomagnetic field of the earth – with a fully superconductive magnet, establishing a new world record and considerably progressing the … pic.twitter.com/gfr1wqrwih

– People’s Daily, China (@pdchina) September 29, 2025

“This validated the reliability of the technical solution and provided an important platform to carry out various experiences of samples under 35.1 Tesla conditions in a fully superconductive magnet,” said the case.

Hot and cold

The realization of superconductive conditions often requires extremely low temperatures. To be clear, superconductive magnets are already used for a variety of applications, as in MRI scanners or particle accelerators. These uses have their own manufacturing complications to manage, but for fusion applications, the low -temperature requirement makes things even more difficult.

Nuclear fusion – collizing two light atoms to generate massive quantities of energy – naturally produces a lot of heat. This heat is also transferred to superconductive magnets, which are designed to safely confine the fusion reaction.

A loving sandwich

And so, in the design of these parts, engineers must be aware of the environmental conditions that the magnets will face. The new magnet is still far from being inserted into a fusion reactor, but the researchers are aware of the challenges that it could pose when they try to strengthen the force of the magnetic field, as they noted in an interview with CGTN.

The design of the magnet refers to a good balance. He “adopts coil technology with high temperature superconductive insert, nested coaxially with superconducting magnets at low temperature,” Liu Fang, researcher at CGTN, told CGTN.

The Institute of Plasma Physics case heads the country’s participation in the International Thermonuclear Reactor (ITER), a global collaboration to build the largest merger reactor in the world. The case did not specify whether the new magnet will go directly to ITER, although he noted that he had been responsible for providing many parts of the reactor, including the superconductive technology.