Tsinghua University Advances the Advanced Nuclear Energy Base and Major Scientific Facility in Rongcheng, Shandong

Recently, the Tsinghua University Rongcheng Advanced Nuclear Energy Technology Research Base project is being comprehensively advanced along the coast of Shidao Bay in Shandong. The project has a planned total investment of approximately 10.3 billion yuan and covers an area of 978 mu. In the future, it will become Tsinghua University's only comprehensive advanced nuclear energy technology research base outside Beijing that integrates discipline development, talent cultivation, scientific and technological innovation, and industrial incubation.

It is reported that the research base is planned to build five major sections: a nuclear-related test area, a general test area, a national laboratory, an office and teaching area, and a logistics support area, with a focus on establishing 9 high-level laboratories. Among them, the comprehensive research building has completed its main structure and entered interior decoration, and is planned to be fully completed and officially handed over to the Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology of Tsinghua University for use by the end of November.

As the core support of the base, the "14th Five-Year Plan" national major scientific and technological infrastructure project—the Broad Energy Spectrum Ultra-High Flux Test Reactor, with a total investment of approximately 7 billion yuan—passed the project approval of the National Development and Reform Commission in November 2025. This major scientific facility has a total construction area of 24,000 square meters, with supporting construction of an irradiation test system, an in-pile hot cell, and a neutron science experimental system.

The test reactor aims to solve China's long-standing "bottleneck" problems of lacking a high-level irradiation test platform and being constrained by others in scarce nuclides. After the project is fully completed, the research focus of the Institute of Nuclear and New Energy Technology of Tsinghua University will gradually shift to Rongcheng, and it is expected to bring in more than 3,000 scientific researchers in the future, laying a solid foundation for China's independent innovation in advanced nuclear energy technology.