In recent years, the CEPC project has successfully completed several major milestones, including the publication of multiple design reports and the completion of three rounds of in-depth reviews. These achievements mark the transition of the project from the design stage to the engineering phase.
However, according to Yifan Wang, Director of the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing, the Chinese government will not consider the CEPC proposal for inclusion in its 2026–2030 funding plan, as stated in a recent CERN Courier press release. Despite this setback, Dr. Wang emphasized that IHEP remains committed to supporting and investing in the CEPC project, which has been carefully developed over the past ten years.
For the FCC-ee collaborators the most interesting statement though comes later in the article, which has an important impact for the competing proposal at CERN. Dr. Wang states: “We plan to submit CEPC for consideration again in 2030, unless FCC is officially approved before then, in which case we will seek to join FCC, and give up CEPC.”
Given the time scale for the FCC-ee, where approval is foreseen for 2028 and tunnel construction to start in 2030, it would mean that there will be at most one Higgs Factory project. China though is still considering the Super Tau/Charm factory for the current five-years plan in discussion.