2018 Volume 13 Pages 3502046
In recent years, fusion research has become exceedingly popular in the Asian region. Many toroidal devices are currently operated for fusion research in universities and institutes. The long pulse operation of a high-performance plasma is also possible in four superconducting devices, which are EAST (Institute of Plasma Physics Chinese Academy of Sciences (ASIPP), China), KSTAR (National Fusion Research Institute (NFRI), Korea), LHD (National Institute for Fusion Science (NIFS), Japan) and SST-1 (Institute for Plasma Research (IPR), India). The world's largest superconducting tokamak, JT-60SA (National Institutes for Quantum and Radiological Science and Technology (QST), Japan), and middle-size tokamak, HL-2M (Southwestern Institute of Physics (SWIP), China), have now been constructed for the upcoming operation. Based on the progressive development of fusion research in Asian region an international collaboration on critical physics for the steady state operation of high-performance plasmas has been carried out among China, Japan and Korea during past five years through the A3 foresight program. Recent fusion research activities in the Asian region and the results of the collaboration are briefly reported with future prospects for international collaboration.