Darmstadtium is a synthetic chemical element; it has symbol Ds and atomic number 110. It is extremely radioactive: the most stable known isotope, darmstadtium-281, has a half-life of approximately 14 seconds. Darmstadtium was first created in 1994 by the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in the city of Darmstadt, Germany, after which it was named.

The GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research is a federally and state co-funded heavy ion (Schwerion) research center in the Wixhausen suburb of Darmstadt, Germany. It was founded in 1969 as the Society for Heavy Ion Research, abbreviated GSI, to conduct research on and with heavy-ion accelerators. It is the only major user research center in the State of Hesse.