At the Dubai Airshow in 2025, China officially unveiled its newest large unmanned aerial vehicle with autonomy capabilities, named the Wing Loong X. According to available information, this UAV is positioned as the world’s first aircraft capable of conducting fully autonomous anti-submarine warfare operations. If confirmed, its significance is immense, as anti-submarine maneuvers are traditionally among the most complex tasks in military naval aviation. The new drone boasts impressive dimensions: its wingspan exceeds 20 meters, comparable to a small private aircraft. The aircraft can remain airborne autonomously for up to 40 hours, reaching an altitude of up to 10 kilometers. This means it can patrol critical sea areas for nearly two days, continuously scanning the waters for submarines. Such long missions are beyond the capability of crewed aircraft like the American P-8 Poseidon due to limitations related to crew fatigue and high operational costs. A key feature of this drone is its ability to autonomously deploy sonobuoys—small, floating sensors for monitoring the underwater environment. The deployment of such sensors has historically been the prerogative of manned aviation. China claims the Wing Loong X is capable not only of deploying buoys but also of performing rapid analysis of the collected acoustic data onboard using artificial intelligence, verifying targets, and initiating an attack. According to some reports, the drone can carry light anti-submarine torpedoes. If true, the aircraft is effectively capable of not only detecting submarines using buoys but also independently pursuing and eliminating them. Verification of these claims would represent a breakthrough, as such systems could radically strengthen China’s position in controlling the South China Sea. Submarines have always relied on the element of stealth, but the simultaneous launch of 20–50 such UAVs, remaining airborne for 40 hours, would create a constant and unprecedented threat to them in disputed waters. Furthermore, the emergence of this drone removes China’s need to develop and mass-produce expensive manned anti-submarine aircraft. The cost of such machines is typically around $220 million per unit, requires a crew of 10–12 specialists, and demands constant maintenance. The Wing Loong X, in comparison, is significantly more economical to produce, can operate as part of a swarm, and is essentially viewed as potentially expendable in case of loss. However, the new technology also elicits skepticism. The use of AI to independently determine whether a detected object is a submarine and to decide whether to launch a torpedo raises serious ethical and technical debates. Anti-submarine warfare has always been complicated by frequent false alarms (errors involving whales or civilian vessels), which necessitate the involvement of highly skilled operators on manned aircraft, where this process often borders on intuition. To perform such a task autonomously, the drone must flawlessly correlate information from radar, sonar, infrared systems, and electronic intelligence, be able to filter out false targets, and predict submarine maneuvers. If the PRC has managed to solve even some of these problems, it testifies to a colossal technological leap. However, experts recall that China often demonstrates conceptual military developments long before they become reality, and the presented models might turn out to be mere mock-ups rather than fully combat-ready systems. Nevertheless, the very fact that work is ongoing on such a project is an important indicator of the threats China perceives and the measures it plans to take to counter them.
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