SOFE opens, 1st time outside US

The 27th IEEE Symposium on Fusion Engineering (SOFE 2017) opened on 5 June in Shanghai, China.
All about fusion. Researchers, scientists, engineers, and project managers from all over the world are meeting this week in Shanghai for the 27th IEEE Symposium On Fusion Engineering.
Close to 500 participants are attending this five-day international conference, organized for engineers and scientists engaged in the development of fusion energy. Held biennially since 1965, SOFE is coordinated by the Fusion Technology Committee of the IEEE/NPSS (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers/Nuclear & Plasma Sciences Society). 
 
For the first time in its 52-year history, SOFE is being hosted outside of the United States ... in Shanghai—a tribute to the rapid growth in fusion research and advanced fusion engineering in China.

Representatives of major fusion experiments will be giving updates on their projects, including Director-General Bernard Bigot from the ITER Organization (who opened the plenary sessions on day one of the conference with a presentation on the construction and manufacturing status of ITER) and directors from the MAST Upgrade Project (tokamak, UK), JT-60SA (tokamak, Japan), W7-X (stellarator, Germany), EAST (tokamak, China), and LHD (stellarator, Japan)
 
Fusion technology and concepts on the road to DEMO—the step following ITER—will also be given centre stage, with reports on advanced fusion research at IFMIF/EVEDA (Japan/Europe) and European and Chinese DEMO concepts.
 
The ITER Organization has a stand at SOFE 2017. A more complete report of the conference highlights will be published in next week's Newsline.