8th ASEAN school on plasma, nuclear fusion hosted in Thailand

Experts and participants of the Eighth ASEAN School on Plasma and Nuclear Fusion 2023 pose for a group photo, in Nakhon Nayok, Thailand, on May 29, 2023. Experts from seven countries, including China, joined a training session on plasma and nuclear fusion technology this week for researchers and students from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and neighboring countries in the central Thai province of Nakhon Nayok. The Eighth ASEAN School on Plasma and Nuclear Fusion 2023, which started on Monday, is a five-day program held by the Thailand Institute of Nuclear Technology (TINT). (Photo by Tim Santasombat/Xinhua)

BANGKOK, May 30 (Xinhua) -- Experts from seven countries, including China, joined a training session on plasma and nuclear fusion technology this week for researchers and students from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and neighboring countries in the central Thai province of Nakhon Nayok.

The Eighth ASEAN School on Plasma and Nuclear Fusion 2023, which started on Monday, is a five-day program held by the Thailand Institute of Nuclear Technology (TINT).

The training session "is one way to build a larger pool of talented young minds to engage in harnessing the fusion energy," Thawatchai Onjun, executive director of TINT, said at the opening ceremony.

TINT plans to be "a gateway to internship for the collaborating institutions and be an ASEAN hub for advanced tokamak-based research and development," he said.

A giant tokamak, an experimental machine in which an ultra-high temperature plasma can be created to simulate the conditions for fusion reactions, arrived in Thailand in January from Hefei, the capital of east China's Anhui Province.

As the first tokamak in Thailand, the device, renamed Thailand Tokamak 1, has just finished installing with joint efforts from TINT and the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (ASIPP), Somsak Dangtip, manager of advanced engineering and nuclear technology center of TINT, told Xinhua.

According to a cooperation agreement signed in 2017, the ASIPP would donate the tokamak to TINT, help the country install and operate the facility and cultivate talent in the field of fusion energy research and development.

"The ASIPP intends to continue collaborating and developing jointly on the peaceful utilization of fusion with ASEAN countries in the future," ASIPP Deputy Director General Hu Jiansheng told Xinhua.

More than 80 participants from five countries, including Thailand, Nepal, Japan, Indonesia and Vietnam, attended the training session.

The first ASEAN school on plasma and nuclear fusion was held in Pathum Thani Province in central Thailand in January 2015.

Participants of the Eighth ASEAN School on Plasma and Nuclear Fusion 2023 visit Thailand Tokamak 1, in Nakhon Nayok, Thailand, on May 29, 2023. Experts from seven countries, including China, joined a training session on plasma and nuclear fusion technology this week for researchers and students from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and neighboring countries in the central Thai province of Nakhon Nayok. The Eighth ASEAN School on Plasma and Nuclear Fusion 2023, which started on Monday, is a five-day program held by the Thailand Institute of Nuclear Technology (TINT). (Photo by Tim Santasombat/Xinhua)

Hu Jiansheng, Deputy Director General of the Institute of Plasma Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (ASIPP), gives a lecture at the Eighth ASEAN School on Plasma and Nuclear Fusion 2023, in Nakhon Nayok, Thailand, on May 29, 2023. Experts from seven countries, including China, joined a training session on plasma and nuclear fusion technology this week for researchers and students from the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and neighboring countries in the central Thai province of Nakhon Nayok. The Eighth ASEAN School on Plasma and Nuclear Fusion 2023, which started on Monday, is a five-day program held by the Thailand Institute of Nuclear Technology (TINT). (Photo by Tim Santasombat/Xinhua)