China wants to compete with Starlink: the satellite race is accelerating

The Elon Musk SpaceX company has orbit thousands of satellites to create its Starlink constellation. This provides high speed connection on a large part of the globe. This type of service greatly interests China, but the country would not take the risk of depending on an American network. She therefore plans to develop her own constellations of satellites in low orbit.

To this end, China recently carried out no less than nine satellite launches in just 25 days. The country intends to catch up on competition at full speed. Five of these launches concerned the Guowang constellation, from China Satellite Network Group controlled by the Chinese State. Another constellation, Qianfan (also known as SpacesAil in English or G60 Starlink), supported by Shanghai, also began to put his satellites in orbit.

Chinese constellations are a significant delay in Starlink

Currently, Guowang would be made up of 81 satellites, a figure which should increase to 400 satellites by 2027, for a total of 13,000 later. The constellation is trying to catch up with Qianfan, which had 90 satellites in March, with the target of 648 by the end of the year, to gradually reach a total of 15,000 satellites. However, the two constellations are still very far from Starlink, which already has more than 8,000 satellites.

The Chinese Information Ministry of Information and Technologies published a directive of satellite constellation operators in low orbit on Wednesday, on Wednesday, on Wednesday. The document also encourages them to integrate these services with the existing terrestrial infrastructure, beyond vocal and messages.

These low orbit constellations are added to those already existing in high orbit, like Beidou, the Chinese version of GPS. The document encourages telecommunications operators to establish partnerships with companies managing satellites to accelerate the adoption of satellite services offered on smartphones.

A global technological strategy

This is not the only area where China is trying to accelerate the adoption of new technologies. The country recently unveiled its “AI Plus” plan, with the development of the adoption of AI in different key sectors, including public governance. The government aims for intelligent economy and intelligent society by 2035. In the same way, delivery robots took the metro in Shenzhen this summer, an example of China’s desire to accelerate the adoption of robots by normalizing their presence in public space.