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The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (which is a merger of former Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe and Karlsruhe University) is responsible for the design, construction and testing of the high temperature superconductor (HTS) current leads for the stellarator Wendelstein 7-X (W7-X) which is presently under construction at the Greifswald branch of the Max-Planck-Institute for Plasma Physics. The current leads are of the binary type, the HTS part covering the temperature range between 4.5 K and 60 K while the heat exchanger covers the range between 60 K and room temperature being cooled by 50 K He. In total 2 prototypes and 14 series current leads are required with a nominal current of 14 kA and a maximum current of 18.2 kA. The paper describes the design and first test results of the prototype HTS current leads. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]