All the core members of the founding team are from the fusion team of the Institute of Nuclear Energy Science and Engineering Management, Department of Engineering Physics, Tsinghua University. The team has been operating China’s first spherical tokamak device — Sino-United Spherical Tokamak, or SUNIST — for more than two decades. Since the achievement of the first plasma in SUNIST in November 2002, it has conducted research into ohmic discharge, turbulence and transport at the plasma edge, utilization of perpendicular field magnetic flux, plasma start-up and current drive by electron cyclotron waves, non-axisymmetric eddy current and plasma equilibrium reconstruction, Alfvén eigenmodes, disruptions and magnetic reconnection, etc. It has also developed a pool of plasma diagnostics, including low-frequency / high-frequency magnetic measurement systems, slow/fast reciprocating probes, diagnosis of the visible light spectrum, and diagnosis of millimeter-waves, thereby accumulating extensive experience in spherical tokamak and related technologies.