China will provide a component for an international project aiming to build the world's largest and most advanced experimental tokamak nuclear fusion reactor by the end of this year, the Beijing-based Science and Technology Daily reported Wednesday. 

The component is a conductor that will be used for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), an international research and engineering project currently underway in Cadarache in the south of France.

ITER is also being dubbed a "man-made sun" as it is based on the scientific principle of the sun producing energy.

ITER began in 1985 as a collaboration between the former Soviet Union, the European Union, the USA and Japan, with the purpose of exploring clean thermonuclear technology for peaceful use, with China joining the project in 2006, according to Science and Technology Daily.

Lin Boqiang, the director of the China Center for Energy Economics Research at Xiamen University, told the Global Times Wednesday that the accomplishment was significant for China's participation in ITER.

"We shoulder about 10 percent of the project's funds, but the intellectual property rights of the research results will be shared by all the participants," Lin said.

"Although it will take a long time for the project to produce economic benefits," Lin told the Global Times, "we will benefit from it enormously in the future as we own the intellectual property," he added.

Exploitation of nuclear power was inevitable under circumstances that saw coal, natural gas and oil being quickly used up by humans, Lin told the Global Times, adding that nuclear energy is also regarded as a clean source that will not harm the environment.