Shanghai Superconductor Plans a Fivefold Tape Capacity Rise and Joins a 25 T Fusion Magnet Consortium
Shanghai Superconductor Technology (上海超导) says its third capacity expansion will take total annual capacity to 20,000 km of 12 mm-wide tape, five times the 4,000 km it reached at the end of 2025. The company gave the figures at China’s 2026 Fusion Energy Conference, where it also joined a consortium to build the country’s first 25 tesla (T) high-temperature superconducting (HTS) magnet development and test line by 2028.
Phase 3 will take capacity to 20,000 km of 12 mm tape
The 2026 Fusion Energy Conference and Fusion Energy Activity Week opened in Shanghai on 25 August 2026, with more than 1,800 experts, scholars and company representatives from China’s fusion sector. In its release from the conference, Shanghai Superconductor said Phase 2 of its expansion was completed at the end of 2025, taking total annual capacity to 4,000 km of 12 mm-wide tape. Phase 3 is under way, and once built, total capacity will reach 20,000 km of 12 mm-wide tape. The release gives no completion date.
The company says it took 15 years to move from laboratory development to industrial mass production, and that it supplies multiple controlled fusion magnet projects around the world.
Converted to 4 mm width, the new total is 60,000 km
Producers quote capacity at different tape widths, so headline figures do not always compare directly. The conversion here is our own arithmetic; the company did not state it. A kilometre of 12 mm tape has the same area as 3 km of 4 mm tape. On that basis the Phase 3 total of 20,000 km at 12 mm equals 60,000 km at 4 mm, and the end-2025 figure of 4,000 km at 12 mm equals 12,000 km at 4 mm. Our guide to how HTS tape is made covers the manufacturing process behind these figures.
The new figures are consistent with the June 2025 Zhangjiang plan
On 29 June 2025 Shanghai Superconductor broke ground on a new factory in the Zhangjiang area of Pudong. The Shanghai municipal government reported planned investment of RMB 2.5 billion, a target of at least 15,000 km of tape a year within two to three years, and existing output of about 4,000 km a year.
Together those make at least 19,000 km, consistent with the new 20,000 km total. The match cannot be confirmed: the 2025 source gave no tape width for either figure, and the conference release does not say where the Phase 3 capacity is being built.
A state-led consortium puts two Chinese tape makers in one 25 T magnet programme
China Fusion Energy Co. (中国聚变能源有限公司) is leading a Yangtze River Delta innovation consortium with Shanghai Superconductor, Eastern Superconductor (东部超导), Shanghai Jiao Tong University, Shanghai Electric Nuclear Power Group, Chaomag New Energy (超磁新能), Energy Singularity (能量奇点), Hangyang Group (杭氧集团) and Yixi Technology (翌曦科技). Its targets are China’s first 25 T HTS high-field magnet development and test line by 2028, and a completed prototype magnet by 2030. A stronger magnetic field allows a more compact fusion magnet, which is why magnet programmes push for higher fields.
Shanghai Superconductor and Eastern Superconductor both make tape, so the consortium brings two domestic suppliers into a single state-led magnet programme. Shanghai Superconductor presented its capacity plan at a national fusion conference, in a release headlined on supporting controlled fusion with batch-produced tape, which points to where it expects much of the new capacity to go. Our applications page covers fusion alongside the other markets for HTS tape.