Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) is Germany's 📝fusion research institute, founded in 1960 at Garching near Munich with a branch institute at Greifswald since 1994 and a combined workforce of about 1,100.
Garching operates 📝ASDEX Upgrade, a 📝tokamak running since 1991 whose name unpacks as Axially Symmetric Divertor Experiment. Its predecessor ASDEX, operated from 1980 to 1990, is where the 📝H-mode high-confinement regime was discovered in 1982 — roughly a doubling of the 📝plasma's thermal insulation, and the baseline operating regime assumed by 📝ITER and by essentially every next-step tokamak designed since. ASDEX Upgrade's stated purpose is to prepare the physics basis for ITER and 📝DEMO by matching density, pressure and wall loading to power-plant conditions rather than by matching size; its plasma-facing surfaces are clad in 📝tungsten rather than carbon. It resumed operation in November 2024 after a two-year shutdown that installed a new upper 📝divertor, opening alternative magnetic configurations for exhaust studies.
Greifswald operates 📝Wendelstein 7-X, the largest 📝stellarator built. On 22 May 2025 it reached a 📝triple product that IPP reports as on a par with tokamak records for long pulses, over a plasma duration of 43 seconds — the two devices together give IPP a programme in both of the confinement geometries still under serious development.