China tests its own Golden Dome variant to track up to 1,000 US missiles
{loadposition bannertop}
{loadposition sidebarpub}
China has tested a prototype global missile defense platform capable of tracking 1,000 launches worldwide, putting Beijing ahead of the U.S. Golden Dome initiative, which remains in early planning.
China has announced the successful testing and deployment of a prototype global missile defense platform, according to researchers at the Nanjing Research Institute of Electronics Technology. The system, described as the first of its kind with planet-wide coverage, is now in use by the People’s Liberation Army, highlighting Beijing’s progress as Washington’s own Golden Dome project remains years from operational status.Follow Army Recognition on Google News at this link
The Golden Dome is a proposed U.S. missile defense system that would use a network of satellites and interceptors to detect, track, and destroy missiles in space before they reach their targets. (Picture source: Lockheed Martin)
As reported by the South China Morning Post on September 30, 2025, China has announced that it has developed and deployed a working prototype of a global missile defense platform before the United States has finalized the technical design of its own Golden Dome initiative. The Chinese system, formally called the “distributed early warning detection big data platform,” has been tested and handed to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), according to reports from the research team led by Li Xudong at the Nanjing Research Institute of Electronics Technology. The platform is said to be capable of monitoring up to 1,000 missile launches directed at China from any point worldwide by integrating inputs from space, air, sea, and ground sensors. Its developers emphasize that this marks the first missile defense platform to achieve what they describe as planet-wide coverage, though they acknowledge that the prototype remains in an early development stage and requires further improvements.
The prototype’s structure is characterized as “physically dispersed, logically unified,” meaning that it is able to merge fragmented and heterogeneous data streams from radars, satellites, optical and electronic reconnaissance systems across different suppliers, regions, and deployment periods without demanding that older systems be replaced. The system conducts distributed parallel scheduling of up to 1,000 data processing tasks across nodes and outputs unified products such as launch alerts, flight path data, target images, and identification assessments. These results are then shared at the PLA headquarters level, providing what the developers describe as enhanced management capability. A September 2 paper published in the Chinese journal Modern Radar explained the integration of top-level nodes into a unified early warning situational awareness environment, representing an attempt to resolve longstanding difficulties in multi-platform data fusion.
Technical details of the Chinese system include the use of QUIC, or Quick UDP Internet Connections, which is a transport protocol designed to maintain high-speed and secure transmission across bandwidth-limited or intermittently connected military networks, even under electronic interference or disruption. The system is also designed to ensure that collected data can be used for artificial intelligence training to improve accuracy over time. According to the project team, the architecture allows results to be centrally published, enabling more comprehensive aggregation and governance of data. Developers note that, while the platform has been tested across several early warning system nodes, the prototype is not considered final, and future work will focus on scaling and refining performance.
In comparison, the United States’ Golden Dome program was announced on May 20, 2025, by President Donald Trump as an effort to build a global missile defense network capable of intercepting threats anywhere on Earth. The concept envisions more than 1,000 satellites in orbit, integrated with space-based interceptors and AI-enabled networks that link land, sea, air, and space layers. Trump pledged to operationally deploy the system within his term, citing an estimated $175 billion cost with $25 billion in initial funding, but other official estimates are much higher. The U.S. Congressional Budget Office assessed the likely cost at $831 billion, while other projections placed it between $1.6 trillion and more than $5 trillion, depending on scope and duration. A June report from the Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Center stated that, given current implementation speed, the United States would likely only reach a demonstrable capability by 2028.
American officials and industry experts acknowledge that the core difficulty in Golden Dome lies in managing the data rather than the interceptors themselves. U.S. Space Force General Michael Guetlein, who serves as the program’s lead, admitted in July that no definitive architecture had been finalized, stating that “everyone who says they know does not know, including me.” Industry representatives such as Dan Knight of Arcfield emphasize that although the necessary data exist, they are not organized in the right places, and that model-based systems engineering is required to connect legacy networks with new inputs. Further complicating U.S. efforts are debates over whether to incorporate systems operated by allied forces, how to ensure secure information sharing, and to what extent AI tools should be given access to sensitive data streams.
Analysts in both China and the United States have suggested that this situation resembles other cases in which Washington introduced a defense concept but Beijing moved to field a prototype first. They point to delays in U.S. programs involving hypersonic weapons, directed-energy lasers, sixth-generation fighters, and electromagnetic carrier-launch systems, while China has reported more consistent progress in those same areas. Observers note that Lockheed Martin and other contractors have circulated renderings of Golden Dome satellites firing lasers at incoming missiles, but these remain conceptual and not tied to a functioning system. In contrast, China has already fielded a prototype with claimed operational testing. This comparison highlights a difference in program pace and illustrates the divergent approaches to handling large-scale missile defense data integration.
The rivalry has already expanded beyond the United States and China. In Taiwan, legislator Wang Dingyu of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party disclosed that Taipei plans to integrate its air defense systems into a centralized command center to establish what has been referred to as a Taiwanese version of the Golden Dome. U.S. legislators, particularly on the Senate Armed Services Committee, have expressed concern about the projected cost and technical feasibility of Golden Dome, warning against committing hundreds of billions of dollars without clear architectural planning. Internationally, critics have raised questions about the compatibility of space-based interceptors with the Outer Space Treaty and other arms-control frameworks, while China and Russia have argued that U.S. proposals risk increasing the militarization of space. Within this competitive environment, China’s early deployment of a prototype signals a potential shift in the global missile defense race, even if the system still requires scaling and refinement.
Written by Jérôme Brahy
Jérôme Brahy is a defense analyst and documentalist at Army Recognition. He specializes in naval modernization, aviation, drones, armored vehicles, and artillery, with a focus on strategic developments in the United States, China, Ukraine, Russia, Türkiye, and Belgium. His analyses go beyond the facts, providing context, identifying key actors, and explaining why defense news matters on a global scale.
{loadposition bannertop}
{loadposition sidebarpub}
China has tested a prototype global missile defense platform capable of tracking 1,000 launches worldwide, putting Beijing ahead of the U.S. Golden Dome initiative, which remains in early planning.
China has announced the successful testing and deployment of a prototype global missile defense platform, according to researchers at the Nanjing Research Institute of Electronics Technology. The system, described as the first of its kind with planet-wide coverage, is now in use by the People’s Liberation Army, highlighting Beijing’s progress as Washington’s own Golden Dome project remains years from operational status.
Follow Army Recognition on Google News at this link
The Golden Dome is a proposed U.S. missile defense system that would use a network of satellites and interceptors to detect, track, and destroy missiles in space before they reach their targets. (Picture source: Lockheed Martin)
As reported by the South China Morning Post on September 30, 2025, China has announced that it has developed and deployed a working prototype of a global missile defense platform before the United States has finalized the technical design of its own Golden Dome initiative. The Chinese system, formally called the “distributed early warning detection big data platform,” has been tested and handed to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA), according to reports from the research team led by Li Xudong at the Nanjing Research Institute of Electronics Technology. The platform is said to be capable of monitoring up to 1,000 missile launches directed at China from any point worldwide by integrating inputs from space, air, sea, and ground sensors. Its developers emphasize that this marks the first missile defense platform to achieve what they describe as planet-wide coverage, though they acknowledge that the prototype remains in an early development stage and requires further improvements.
The prototype’s structure is characterized as “physically dispersed, logically unified,” meaning that it is able to merge fragmented and heterogeneous data streams from radars, satellites, optical and electronic reconnaissance systems across different suppliers, regions, and deployment periods without demanding that older systems be replaced. The system conducts distributed parallel scheduling of up to 1,000 data processing tasks across nodes and outputs unified products such as launch alerts, flight path data, target images, and identification assessments. These results are then shared at the PLA headquarters level, providing what the developers describe as enhanced management capability. A September 2 paper published in the Chinese journal Modern Radar explained the integration of top-level nodes into a unified early warning situational awareness environment, representing an attempt to resolve longstanding difficulties in multi-platform data fusion.
Technical details of the Chinese system include the use of QUIC, or Quick UDP Internet Connections, which is a transport protocol designed to maintain high-speed and secure transmission across bandwidth-limited or intermittently connected military networks, even under electronic interference or disruption. The system is also designed to ensure that collected data can be used for artificial intelligence training to improve accuracy over time. According to the project team, the architecture allows results to be centrally published, enabling more comprehensive aggregation and governance of data. Developers note that, while the platform has been tested across several early warning system nodes, the prototype is not considered final, and future work will focus on scaling and refining performance.
In comparison, the United States’ Golden Dome program was announced on May 20, 2025, by President Donald Trump as an effort to build a global missile defense network capable of intercepting threats anywhere on Earth. The concept envisions more than 1,000 satellites in orbit, integrated with space-based interceptors and AI-enabled networks that link land, sea, air, and space layers. Trump pledged to operationally deploy the system within his term, citing an estimated $175 billion cost with $25 billion in initial funding, but other official estimates are much higher. The U.S. Congressional Budget Office assessed the likely cost at $831 billion, while other projections placed it between $1.6 trillion and more than $5 trillion, depending on scope and duration. A June report from the Arms Control and Non-Proliferation Center stated that, given current implementation speed, the United States would likely only reach a demonstrable capability by 2028.
American officials and industry experts acknowledge that the core difficulty in Golden Dome lies in managing the data rather than the interceptors themselves. U.S. Space Force General Michael Guetlein, who serves as the program’s lead, admitted in July that no definitive architecture had been finalized, stating that “everyone who says they know does not know, including me.” Industry representatives such as Dan Knight of Arcfield emphasize that although the necessary data exist, they are not organized in the right places, and that model-based systems engineering is required to connect legacy networks with new inputs. Further complicating U.S. efforts are debates over whether to incorporate systems operated by allied forces, how to ensure secure information sharing, and to what extent AI tools should be given access to sensitive data streams.
Analysts in both China and the United States have suggested that this situation resembles other cases in which Washington introduced a defense concept but Beijing moved to field a prototype first. They point to delays in U.S. programs involving hypersonic weapons, directed-energy lasers, sixth-generation fighters, and electromagnetic carrier-launch systems, while China has reported more consistent progress in those same areas. Observers note that Lockheed Martin and other contractors have circulated renderings of Golden Dome satellites firing lasers at incoming missiles, but these remain conceptual and not tied to a functioning system. In contrast, China has already fielded a prototype with claimed operational testing. This comparison highlights a difference in program pace and illustrates the divergent approaches to handling large-scale missile defense data integration.
The rivalry has already expanded beyond the United States and China. In Taiwan, legislator Wang Dingyu of the ruling Democratic Progressive Party disclosed that Taipei plans to integrate its air defense systems into a centralized command center to establish what has been referred to as a Taiwanese version of the Golden Dome. U.S. legislators, particularly on the Senate Armed Services Committee, have expressed concern about the projected cost and technical feasibility of Golden Dome, warning against committing hundreds of billions of dollars without clear architectural planning. Internationally, critics have raised questions about the compatibility of space-based interceptors with the Outer Space Treaty and other arms-control frameworks, while China and Russia have argued that U.S. proposals risk increasing the militarization of space. Within this competitive environment, China’s early deployment of a prototype signals a potential shift in the global missile defense race, even if the system still requires scaling and refinement.
Written by Jérôme Brahy
Jérôme Brahy is a defense analyst and documentalist at Army Recognition. He specializes in naval modernization, aviation, drones, armored vehicles, and artillery, with a focus on strategic developments in the United States, China, Ukraine, Russia, Türkiye, and Belgium. His analyses go beyond the facts, providing context, identifying key actors, and explaining why defense news matters on a global scale.
