China Makes Plans to Build Underwater Base

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China has been developing plans to construct an underwater base for scientific and military applications. The underwater base will be powered by AI technology and will support the operation of unmanned submarines, both military and scientific.

The idea of an underwater base was thought of by researchers from the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), after the Chinese president Xi Jinping called upon researchers to do something that other countries had never done before.

The result is the conception of the idea of an underwater base found in the deepest parts of the South China sea, at depths between 6,000 and 11,000 meters. At such deep depths the water pressure found in those areas are capable of crushing steel. Any structure intended to survive such immense pressure needs to be built from extremely strong materials.

The occupants of the underwater structure will be autonomous robots that utilize artificial intelligence to survive. The facility will be overlooked by humans and will be powered by a ship or floating platform connected to the underwater facility.

The underwater structure will be able to deploy underwater drones to study organisms living in those depths, as well as bring back samples to study on land. The samples taken in by the autonomous machines can also be further studied in the base by the AI robots, which later on will send a report on the study to the humans back on land.

Building such an underwater facility is no simple matter. Aside from extremely high pressure, dangers such as underwater earthquakes, volcanoes, and landslides also pose as a threat to the facility.

Researchers recommended setting up the underwater facility in the Manila Trench, the deepest point in the South China Sea, however that area has many thermal vents that spew chemicals from the Earth’s core. The area is also incredibly geologically active, meaning that an earthquake is very likely to happen in that area.

Besides research and possibly classified military operations, the underwater facility can be used to alert nearby nations of any underwater earthquakes that may cause devastating tidal waves to crash on coastal cities.

Militarytechnology.news mentions that the Chinese government has allocated over $162.6 million dollars for the initial budget of the underwater facility project.