China readies world's first giant submarine drone carrier

SHANGHAI, China: Satellite imagery has revealed what analysts say is a new class of warship taking shape at the Hudong-Zhonghua shipyard in Shanghai — a mothership built to carry, launch and recover uncrewed submarines the size of conventional crewed boats.

The vessel has no name, and Beijing has yet to acknowledge its existence. The hull was first posted on 13 September 2026 by Japanese open-source analyst KAROTASU and assessed two days later by H I Sutton at Naval News. It currently sits roughly 200 metres long and 30 metres wide inside a 340-metre-class dock, which works out to approximately 1,115 feet.

The ship itself is shorter than the Essex-class carriers that formed the backbone of the US Navy's Pacific campaign from 1943 — those measured 872 to 888 feet overall and displaced 36,380 long tons at full load. At roughly 656 to 673 feet, the Chinese hull comes up about 200 to 230 feet short of that benchmark, but it is larger than the US Navy's Independence-class light carriers of the same era.

What sets the vessel apart is its dock and its mission. A bottom-opening well-deck and a 12-arm cradle feed an internal hangar that experts estimate can hold four extra-extra-large uncrewed underwater vehicles, or XXLUUVs, measuring 35 to 45 metres — the size of small crewed submarines.

TechRadar reported that these XXLUUVs have an estimated range of around 10,000 nautical miles, based on a similarly sized concept exhibited by a Chinese shipbuilder. Asia Times, citing an Institute for the Study of War report by Daniel Shats and others, put the drones' possible autonomous range at up to 7,400 kilometres.

Analysts describe the ship as a mobile tender and forward-support base, providing maintenance, rearmament and extended logistical endurance for China's underwater drones far beyond its coastline. That would allow sustained reconnaissance or strike missions across the First and Second Island Chains, the geography at the centre of Beijing's regional ambitions.

Until now, such drones have been tested from specially built floating docks that conceal them in port and carry them out to sea. That approach limits their operating range and access to spare parts and repairs, constraints the unnamed vessel — with its enclosed hangar — is designed to overcome.

The platform fits into a broader Chinese push into drone warfare. In December 2025, China test-flew the Jiutian drone carrier, a 16-ton unmanned mothership with a 7,000-kilometre range designed to deploy swarms of more than 100 loitering munitions. At sea, the People's Liberation Army Navy has commissioned the Type 076 amphibious assault ship, which uses electromagnetic catapults to launch uncrewed combat aircraft alongside troops and aircraft.

The Institute for the Study of War has assessed that China could deploy its XXLUUVs from dedicated surface motherships during a Taiwan conflict to conduct undersea reconnaissance, lay mines and attack adversary vessels. Such deployment would extend their reach toward US territories and strategic maritime chokepoints for pre-conflict positioning.

Experts caution that the vessel's large footprint makes it highly vulnerable to interception in open conflict, and civilian or research applications have not been ruled out. With territorial disputes in the South China Sea unresolved, the ship is being read as both a statement of capability and a challenge to the United States and its allies on the naval front.