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In Sam Raimi's Spider-Man 2 (2004), nuclear scientist Dr Otto Octavius — the film's main antagonist — is trying to develop an operational fusion reactor when things go horribly wrong, turning him into the villainous Doctor Octopus. In the pivotal scene, as his character is about to cross the point of no return, Dr Octavius describes his doomed invention as "the power of the sun, in the palm of my hand."
You may be surprised, but this McGuffin was not so far-fetched after all. The technology which Doc Ock's fictional fusion reactor was based on already exists in the real world. It's known as a toroidal magnetic chamber or 'tokamak' (from the Russian toroidalnaya kamera magnitnaya katushka, meaning 'toroidal chamber with magnetic coils'), and India is one of the leading innovators in this field alongside China, Japan, South Korea, Russia, the United States, and the European Union (through the ITER megaproject, which India is also a contributor to).
A tokamak is a type of experimental device designed to achieve controlled and sustained nuclear fusion — the process of fusing atomic nuclei to release massive amounts of energy, just like the sun and other stars do. India's tokamak fusion reactor research began in 1982 with the development of ADITYA (meaning 'Sun' in Sanskrit) — a medium-sized tokamak that has been operational at the Institute for Plasma Research (IPR) in Gujarat since 1989.
ADITYA is the first indigenously designed and fabricated tokamak in India. This medium-size tokamak conducts experiments with high plasma current at high temperature. Upgraded since its original construction with external heating systems, discharge cleaning systems and new diagnostics, it contributes to the international database of experimental results in the following areas: disruption mitigation, spontaneous and deliberately triggered disruptions, and runaway electron generation and mitigation. ADITYA served as a stepping stone to the development of the Steady State Superconducting Tokamak-1 (SST-1), India's most ambitious domestic fusion reactor project, helping researchers gain hands-on experience with plasma confinement and diagnostics. ADITYA, originally a limiter device, was recently upgraded to ADITYA-U, a divertor device, designed for higher temperature operation and better power exhaust efficiency.
In 1995, India initiated the design and construction of SST-1, India's first fully superconducting tokamak. This marked a significant technological leap forward, as SST-1 was among the first in the world to use superconducting magnets to enable steady-state (long-duration) plasma operations. Unlike earlier machines that could only maintain plasma for short bursts, SST-1 aimed to replicate the continuous conditions needed for a practical fusion reactor by sustaining plasma for 1,000 seconds. The SST-1’s development faced numerous technical challenges like magnet fabrication and vacuum chamber design.
Despite these challenges, India demonstrated persistence and scientific maturity by commissioning the SST-1 in the early 2000s. The first plasma in SST-1 was finally achieved in 2013, marking a major milestone in India's nuclear fusion program. Since then, the SST-1 has undergone several upgrades to improve heating systems, plasma control, and diagnostics. It is also the only tokamak in the world with superconducting toroidal field magnets operating in two-phase helium instead of supercritical helium in a cryo-stable manner, demonstrating reduced cold helium consumption. The tokamak has successfully demonstrated several aspects of steady-state operation, helping Indian scientists understand critical issues like plasma-wall interactions, current drive mechanisms, and energy confinement.
Fusion energy, the same process that powers the sun, has long been considered to be the holy grail of clean energy. As one of the most populous countries in the world, India is in dire need of clean, sustainable sources of energy, and tokamaks like the SST-1 are a glimpse of how we can achieve that. India is currently developing a more advanced machine, the SST-2, which will incorporate technical knowhow from the SST-1 and ITER. The long-term goal is to contribute to the development of DEMO, a prototype fusion power plant designed to supply electricity to India's power-grid.
