Engineering360: "Video: Fusion records keep falling — Plasma reaction sustained for 17 minutes"

What's the ultimate goal for these experiments?

To produce large amounts of electricity from controlled, sustained, hydrogen to helium fusion. Potentially safer than fission of radioactive fuels. The downside being the magnetic containment fails and a mass of fusing plasma hotter than the sun is dropped inside a power plant. Still, that "doomsday" scenario is likely much better than either a Three Mile Island or a Chernobyl type failure.

Is that like the "China Syndrome"?

You should probably Google all three, Cherenoble, Three Mile Island, and China Syndrome. There's much more to all of them than can (or should) be posted here.

But I can't resist saying that two are historical events, one is a movie.