A joint physics design group for the Accelerator Driven Sub-critical System (ADS) Project , which is jointly undertaken by the Institute of High Energy Physics (IHEP) and the Institute of Modern Physics (IMP), was set up to carry out the accelerator physics design.

The decision, being an essential step to push the project forward, was recently made at a meeting held at IHEP. It is agreed that more coordination and communications be established between the two institutes to promote the fast progress of the ADS Project.

The ADS reactor will be nuclear fission type that produces fission without achieving criticality. Instead of a sustaining chain reaction, a subcritical reactor uses additional neutrons from an outside source. The neutron source can be a nuclear fusion machine or a particle accelerator producing neutrons by spallation. Such a device with a reactor coupled to an accelerator is called accelerator-driven system, namely ADS.

ADS has been proposed as a tool generating electric power and as a tool producing transmutation of nuclear waste as well, which is an important direction of development for the future energy of advanced neutron spallation.