While the HL-LHC era for proton collisions starts in 2029 with the operational Run 4, the aim is to achieve the target HL heavy-ion performance already in Run 3 following the upgrade of the ALICE experiment during LS2.

Crystal collimation was successfully integrated in the WP5 upgrade baseline as an in-kind item to mitigate schedule issues with the 11 T dipoles which have shown potential reliability issues for long-term operation in the accelerator