The experiment is run by an international team of about 40 scientists, led by researchers at China's Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

[2][7] The depth of the laboratory means the experiment is better shielded from cosmic ray interference than similar detectors, allowing the instrument to be scaled up more easily.

[4][7] Wolfgang Lorenzon, a collaborating researcher from the University of Michigan, has commented that "the big advantage is that PandaX is much cheaper and doesn't need as much shielding material" as similar detectors.

A larger size allows greater sensitivity, but this is only useful if unwanted "background events" can be kept from swamping the desired ones; ever more stringent limits on radioactive contamination are also required.

[2] PandaX-II, completed in March 2015 and currently operational, uses 500 kilograms (1,100 lb) of xenon (approximately 300 kg fiducual)[10]: 24–25  to probe the 10–1,000 GeV regime.

[15] In September 2018 the XENON1T experiment published its results from 278.8 days of collected data and set a new record limit for WIMP-nucleon spin-independent elastic interactions.

[17][18] The majority of the PandaX experimental equipment was transported from Shanghai Jiao Tong University to China Jinping Underground Laboratory in August 2012, and two engineering test runs were conducted in 2013.

"[8] Xiangdong Ji, spokesperson for PandaX and a physicist at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, concedes that the international community is unlikely to support more than two multi-tonne detectors, but argues that having many groups working will lead to faster improvement in detection technology.