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​The hopes for fusion power ride on the success of the next big international experiment, ITER. So when it comes to keeping ITER running safely, nothing is being left to chance. CCFE is using the latest computer modelling techniques to predict 'worst case scenarios' for the magnets that will control the plasma of fusion fuel inside the machine; meaning the project team at ITER can ensure their protection systems are ready for anything.

Read more on CCFE website.

​It's all systems go for the upgrade of the UK's fusion experiment MAST after a nailbiting operation to move the entire machine was completed just before Christmas.

In order to refit MAST's magnetic coils, diagnostics, power supplies and a plethora of other systems, the tokamak has had to be stripped down and removed from its machine hall to an assembly area where upgrade work can be carried out. And transporting 25 tonnes of extremely valuable scientific hardware, even a relatively short distance, is no mean feat.

Read more and view a video here.

​ITER China has just launched the English version of its website. Follow this link for procurement news, events and milestones.

Six members of the Korean National Assembly visited ITER on 7 January, accompanied by the head of the Korean Domestic Agency for ITER, Kijung Jung. After a tour of the construction site, which they qualified as "impressive," the delegates were welcomed by ITER Director-General Osamu Motojima who was pleased to have the chance to thank the delegation members for Korea's contribution to the Project and constant support.

​During a recent visit to the Budker Institute in Novosibirsk, Russia, Paul Thomas, CODAC, Heating & Diagnostics Directorate head from the ITER Organization, signed two Complementary Diagnostics Procurement Arrangements with the Deputy Director General of Rosatom, Vyacheslav Pershukov.

The Budker Institute is already heavily engaged in the engineering of diagnostic systems in the vacuum vessel ports following a Procurement Arrangement signed in August 2013.

The year 2014 has been announced as the Year of Fusion by the Russian state corporation Rosatom. Industrial engagement in ITER component manufacturing is ramping up at different locations in Russia; Saint Petersburg will be hosting in June the Fourteenth Meeting of the ITER Council; and in October the 25th Fusion Energy Conference, organized by the International Atomic Energy Agency, will be held in the same city.

Read the full article here.

​Fusion physicist Alex Meakins has posted some striking photographs of plasmas in MAST, caught before the UK's spherical tokamak shutdown for upgrade.

Watch the photographs on Alex Meakins' Twitter account.

​Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) researchers have established the first international 100 gigabits/s connection for German science. It will be the basis of better cooperation in data-intensive sciences in the future. At the SC13 International Supercomputing Conference in Denver, KIT's Steinbuch Centre for Computing (SCC) successfully demonstrated this technology.

"As in an orchestra we have now combined the various instruments such that this record speed from end user to end user can be used for the first time in German science," says Professor Dr. Bernhard Neumair, Managing Director of SCC. Interaction of user software and connecting stations was controlled and optimized for this purpose.

The connection is to foster the development of advanced network technologies and to support data-intensive high-end projects, such as the experiments at the LHC in Geneva, at the ITER fusion reactor in France, and in other international programs.

Read more on the  PhysOrg website.