China has triggered a "DeepSeek moment" in its hypersonic arsenal, revealing Mach-7 missiles with a cement coating, which can be mass-produced for approximately $100,000 per unit.
This development is causing alarm among US armed forces, which have yet to deploy a hypersonic weapon and cannot come close to the production prices announced by China.
As reported by the South China Morning Post newspaper, the Chinese private aerospace company Lingkong Tianxingunveiled the YKJ-1000, a Mach-7 hypersonic missile constructed almost entirely from civilian-grade materials to keep production costs extremely low.
Screenshots circulating on X (formerly Twitter) claim that the production cost of the YKJ-1000 amounts to just $100,000per unit.
The economics behind this are absolutely astonishing, as a US SM-6 missile costs around $4 million per unit, while the THAAD missile can reach $15 million, and a Patriot PAC-3 can cost up to $4.2 million.
"Developed by a private company instead of state-owned enterprises, this missile proves the success of China's Military-Civil Fusion strategy," one of the slides states.
The global arms race
The economics of war are changing dramatically when missiles become cheap.
Low-cost hypersonic weapon systems will reduce the cost margin for Beijing, facilitating its ability to engage in conflicts.
Just consider this: a swarm of YKJ-1000s could cost the US or its regional Asian allies hundreds of millions to shoot down in the event of a conflict.
This missile highlights how China is leveraging its civilian manufacturing base to produce inexpensive sensors, BeiDou chips, cameras, structural components, and other locally produced technologies.
"If this missile is introduced to the global defense weapons market, it will be extremely competitive," military analyst Wei Dongxu told the state-owned channel CCTV earlier this week.
Dongxu added: "Many countries have not developed their own hypersonic missiles, and this one – with its long range, great destructive power, and strong penetration capability – will likely become a sought-after product due to its extremely low price."
If this report is accurate, then the "DeepSeek moment" for hypersonic missiles has officially arrived.
It is recalled here that about a year ago, China caused a global earthquake when it launched DeepSeek, which at minimal cost created a rival to Chat GPT in the widespread use of artificial intelligence.
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