World's deepest underground laboratory starts new construction in SW China

CHENGDU - The world's deepest underground laboratory in Southwest China's Sichuan province started construction on a major new physical research project Saturday, according to the laboratory.

The project is among the most important of China's scientific and technological infrastructure push during the 13th Five-Year Plan (2016-2020) period, which aims to focus on cutting-edge research in particle physics and other fields.

The 2,400-meter-deep laboratory, which was put into use in 2010, is the deepest underground laboratory in the world. The lab space expanded to 300,000 cubic meters from 4,000 cubic meters in 2014.

A series of dark matter detection experiments conducted by China's top universities including Tsinghua University have been launched at the laboratory.