CERN’s director-general, Fabiola Gianotti, says China’s pause on its Circular Electron Positron Collider (CEPC) creates an opportunity for Europe’s own large particle accelerator plan.

The CEPC, announced a decade ago, would have been 100 km long, dwarfing CERN’s 27-km Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which famously confirmed the Higgs boson in 2012.

CERN is now considering the 91-km Future Circular Collider (FCC) to probe dark matter and dark energy, which make up 95% of the universe but remain largely unexplored.

The $17 billion FCC project has received positive feedback from CERN’s council on its feasibility study, with potential approval by 2028 and operation by the late 2040s, the AFP has reported.

With China’s project on hold, CERN faces less international competition, strengthening the case for Europe’s ambitious next-generation collider.