--- date: 2026-10-30 subject: "Navy stealth drone lands on assault ship | State buyers backed for domestic gas turbines | Data centers to draw 6% of China's power" --- **China's navy says its GJ-21 stealth drone** has made its first takeoff and landing on the Sichuan, an amphibious assault ship that launches aircraft with an electromagnetic catapult. **China's energy regulator issued gas turbine guidance** with three other departments, crediting state-owned enterprises in performance reviews for buying the first unit of a new domestic design. **The same regulator forecast data center electricity growth** of more than 100 billion kilowatt-hours a year through 2030, reaching about 6% of national consumption. **Robot maker AgiBot released its GO-3 Preview model**, an embodied AI system that turns what a robot sees and is told into physical actions, and says it ranked first on three robotics leaderboards. # Top Stories - **Chinese navy says its first carrier-based stealth drone has flown from an assault ship** — The People's Liberation Army (PLA) Navy says its GJ-21 stealth drone has made its first takeoff and landing on the Sichuan, an amphibious assault ship that carries troops and vehicles ashore. With the drone aboard, a ship built to land troops gains its own fixed-wing stealth aircraft for scouting and strike missions. The Navy calls the GJ-21 the PLA's first carrier-based stealth drone built for both roles. Xinhua says the Sichuan launches aircraft with an electromagnetic catapult and stops them with arresting cables. Sea trials began in November 2025, and a military commentator earlier told state broadcaster CCTV the next step was training the ship and its aircraft together. [Yicai](https://www.yicai.com/brief/103418482.html) [state-affiliated] [CLS](https://www.cls.cn/detail/2520730) [South China Morning Post](https://www.scmp.com/news/china/military/article/3362271/chinas-type-076-amphibious-assault-ship-sichuan-final-tests-drone-catapult?module=inline&pgtype=others) - **China issues guidance backing state firms that buy first domestic gas turbines** — China's National Energy Administration (NEA) and three other departments issued guidance on developing domestic gas turbines, the fuel-burning engines that drive power generators and pipeline compressors. Purchases of the first unit of a new domestic design would count toward state-owned enterprises' performance reviews, and state-led demonstration projects could go ahead below the usual minimum investment return requirement. Both lower the cost of being the first customer. NEA official Wang Yunbo said major turbine makers have production booked beyond 2030, which he tied to a widening global gap between data center power demand and supply. By 2030 the NEA, which regulates the power sector, aims to have three to five domestically developed heavy-duty gas turbine models for grid-scale generation in use. [Xinhua](https://www.news.cn/20261030/d154eaf272af4858bdcbd031a8b26289/c.html) [state media] [Gelonghui](https://www.gelonghui.com/p/7211946) - **China's energy regulator forecasts data center power use reaching 6% of national demand by 2030** — China's National Energy Administration (NEA) forecast that electricity use by the country's data centers will grow by more than 100 billion kilowatt-hours (kWh) a year through 2030, reaching about 6% of national consumption. Adding that much demand each year means power supply, including dedicated green-power lines, has to grow alongside new computing centers. Tan Hongjiang, a deputy department director at the NEA, also reported progress on green-power direct connection, in which a renewable plant feeds a user over its own line. Local governments have approved 12 such projects for computing facilities. [Xinhua](https://www.news.cn/fortune/20261030/ff53ea2d2ccb4dceadcc6d14f6d22fda/c.html) [state media] [Global Times](https://china.huanqiu.com/article/4Tp3rlYhisM) [state media] - **Robot maker AgiBot releases robot AI model it says tops three leaderboards** — Chinese robot maker AgiBot released GO-3 Preview, an embodied AI model that turns what a robot sees and is told into physical actions, and says it ranked first on three robotics leaderboards. If AgiBot open-sources the model by the end of 2026 as it expects to, other robot developers would be able to build on it. Alongside the model came AGIBOT WORLD 2026, which the company calls a million-scale dataset recorded on physical robots, a kind of data that is slow and costly to collect. On Nov. 2 AgiBot plans a livestream in which its G2 robots will work a convenience store unsupervised for 24 hours. [36Kr](https://www.36kr.com/p/4046784076305283) # Policy & Regulation - **China publishes first foreign-language draft of its mandatory EV safety standard** — The Ministry of Industry and Information Technology (MIIT), China's manufacturing regulator, put out the first foreign-language draft of the country's mandatory Electric Vehicle Safety Requirements standard for public review, with comments due Nov. 4. Exporters seeking overseas certification typically had to translate the Chinese standard and reconcile it with each target market's rules, resulting in long certification periods and high communication costs. EV Industry Policy says the official text will let China's requirements enter international mutual recognition certification directly. A companion draft would make automatic emergency braking (AEB), which brakes a vehicle on its own before a collision, mandatory on heavy trucks, covering pedestrians as well as vehicles ahead. Factory-fitted AEB came standard on 27.5% of heavy trucks in 2025, per Gaogong Intelligent Vehicle Research Institute data. [EV Industry Policy](https://www.evchanye.com/2026/1030/55024.shtml) [Sina News](https://k.sina.com.cn/article_1838672663_6d97eb1702001ra9c.html) # Military Watch - **Chinese military patrols waters and airspace around disputed Scarborough Shoal** — The Southern Theater Command, the People's Liberation Army (PLA) command responsible for the South China Sea, sent naval and air forces on a combat readiness patrol around Scarborough Shoal, which Beijing calls Huangyan Dao. The Philippines, a U.S. treaty ally, also claims the shoal, and the command called the patrol a necessary countermeasure to Philippine "infringement and provocation." Since October, the command said, its forces have continuously stepped up naval and air patrols around the shoal's waters and airspace. [Guancha](https://www.guancha.cn/ZhengZhi/2026_10_30_906422.shtml) [state-affiliated] # Digital Infrastructure - **Data center hub Guizhou plans 50 billion yuan network investment through 2030** — Guizhou, a southwestern province that hosts a national computing hub, plans to invest 50 billion yuan ($7.5 billion) in communication networks and other information infrastructure from 2026 to 2030, a provincial telecom official said. The money serves "East Data, West Computing," the national program that routes data from eastern economic centers to data centers in western provinces. Under that program, network speed decides how quickly that distant computing responds. By 2030 Guizhou targets latency of 8 milliseconds to the Greater Bay Area around Guangzhou and Shenzhen and 18 milliseconds to the Yangtze River Delta and Beijing region. Latency is the delay as data travels. [Xinhua](https://www.news.cn/20261030/a65cb9851afe42b6b49d55e8e0176581/c.html) [state media] [Eastmoney](https://finance.eastmoney.com/a/202610303916363282.html) # Strategic Context - **China vows response after U.S. regulator moves to stop recognizing Chinese electronics test labs** — China's Foreign Ministry vowed "necessary measures" after the U.S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) voted to stop recognizing electronics test labs in China and other countries without a test recognition pact. More than 80% of electronics sold in the United States are certified in China, according to Caixin, so the cutoff, effective Dec. 1, 2028, lands on the labs that test most U.S.-bound devices. Every device that emits radio signals, from smartphones to baby monitors, must pass such testing before sale in the United States. Spokesperson Guo Jiakun accused Washington of abusing state power to suppress Chinese companies. The FCC votes Nov. 19 on barring China's three state-owned carriers from directly accessing U.S. phone numbers. [Guancha](https://www.guancha.cn/GuoJi%C2%B7ZhanLue/2026_10_30_906429.shtml) [state-affiliated] [Caixin](https://www.caixin.com/2026-10-30/102498899.html)