The Chinese got a record at 1066. The French beat that with 1337. Okay, that's great.
But nowhere does the article say WHY THEY STOPPED THERE. If it was working, why not continue on for an even higher record? Huh?
I suspect the answer is something akin to, "Something broke" or "Something overheated" or "We ran out of XYZ component" or "We blew a breaker". I doubt it was "We just felt that was enough" or "Mom called and said to stop making so much noise".
So WHY DID THEY STOP?
GREAT QUESTION- maybe they stopped for wine and cheese…
Because they cut off the power feeding the reaction, or used up all the deuterium-tritium fuel. No tokamak reactor has achieve ignition; that is, a set sustaining reaction. The National Ignition Facility did, but only in a small pellet of fuel. Poof and it was over.
Containment fails, the process stops. I don’t think tokamaks or the z-pinch magnetic methods are going to bear fruit.
They are creating supernova conditions, far beyond conditions in the Sun, or anywhere else in our solar system. The first fusion reactor that goes supernova, blowing radioactive waste over a large area, is the end of the fusion scam gravy train. At this point, fusion scientists know matter assembly is not even the right direction, matter disassembly is, and being too old to start over, just want to make it to retirement. They need to show progress, but not blow up their ride.