The Larger Helical Device (LHD), one of the largest helical devices in the world, has entered the advanced research phase, that is the deuterium experiment. During the first phase of the deuterium experiment, the ion temperature beyond 10 keV was successfully achieved, along with many new findings such as on hydrogen isotope effect, impurity behavior etc. These will be introduced.  Opportunities for collaboration with LHD, and the wider fields of plasma theory/simulation, fluid experiments, and plasma-material interaction studies of NIFS (and Japanese Universities in general) will be explored. NIFS supports an initiative (fund) for further enhancing such international collaborations.