Chinese scientists build the most precise timing machine for electronic warfare

Researchers have created an atomic clock that can be taken into war zones, and it could change the future of military combat

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The future of warfare could be completely changed after Chinese scientists built an atomic clock that can be transported into war zones. Photo: Reuters

Published: 9:00am, 7 Jan 2025

A timepiece that could profoundly change the nature of future warfare has been created by Chinese scientists.

Standing 1.5 metres (4.9 feet) tall and roughly the size of a single-door refrigerator, the caesium atomic fountain clock can be loaded onto a military truck and, after enduring long-distance transport with bumpy roads and other harsh environments, it can still cap the uncertainty of its timekeeping to less than one-fifth to the quadrillionth of a second.

This feat was once deemed impossible, as only the atomic clocks that set international standard time can achieve this precision, and those clocks are all large and need to be housed in a guarded laboratory against all environmental disturbances.

A high-precision timekeeping system is the backbone of modern warfare, enabling radars separated by thousands of miles to operate in unison, as they detect and track elusive stealth fighters. It also improves the quality of signals in electronic warfare and facilitates the transmission of vast amounts of data.

Extremely accurate timekeeping machines can even help turn science fiction into reality, such as combining lasers or microwaves emitted by different combat platforms into a single deadly beam to destroy enemies with tremendous energy.

The NIM-TF3 atomic clock, manufactured by the National Institute of Metrology of China, can operate autonomously for long periods without the need for professional maintenance, making it highly suitable for open-world applications.

In a peer-reviewed paper published in the Chinese-language Metrology Journal on December 18, the project team, led by Professor Lin Pingwei, said that the clock’s long-term stability reached an astonishing level of five quadrillionths in actual tests.