Chinese breakthrough allows physicists to build the most powerful laser

I posted this because I was completely unaware that there is something of a high powered lasers race in physics right now. The creation of matter via high powered lasers was a possibility previously unknown to me. Thus, this fed my curiosity and seemed appropriate to share with HN.

This project has been in the works for a few years now, so it isn't so much of a breakthrough right now. The real breakthrough seems to be that China is funding this project while other nations have less ambitious projects or more ambitious but unfunded projects.