By AFP and Entorno | 2025-06-26

China's nuclear arsenal surged from 500 last year to 600 warheads in 2025 and is expected to continue to accelerate significantly, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI).

Beijing now possesses more warheads than the United Kingdom and France combined, and is expanding its arsenal faster than any other nation. The bolstering of its warheads marks a significant escalation in its nuclear capabilities, SIPRI said in a report issued in June.

"China is increasing its nuclear force steadily," said SIPRI Director Dan Smith. "It could reach 1,000 warheads in seven or eight years."

While that would still trail behind the arsenals of the United States and Russia, it would make China "a much bigger player," he added.

The global tally of nuclear warheads stood at 12,241 in January, of which 9,614 were in military stockpiles for potential use. SIPRI said the trend of post–Cold War disarmament is shifting as states invest in new weapons and delivery systems.

"What we see now, first of all, is that the number of operational nuclear warheads is beginning to increase," Smith told AFP.

Russia's failed missile tests

Russia and the United States, which still account for roughly 90% of the global arsenal, both have extensive programs under way to modernize and replace their nuclear warheads, it said.

Still, Russia's nuclear modernization program is "facing challenges that in 2024 included a test failure and the further delay of the new Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) and slower than expected upgrades of other systems," the assessment found.

Failed tests of the RS-28 Sarmat -- dubbed "Satan II" by Western media outlets -- indicate that Moscow is encountering a crisis with its strategic weapons, according to Timothy Wright, a missile analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies.

The missile is failing tests, deadlines recede into the rear view mirror, and the loss of access to critical technology and expertise that Ukraine supplied in Soviet and early post-Soviet times has prompted a crisis in Moscow's missile building, Wright said.

"Historically, a lot of the ICBM manufacturing plants and personnel were based in Ukraine," he told Business Insider in an article published in January.

In addition, Russia has "really restricted monetary means" for addressing its missile shortcomings, said Fabian Hoffmann, a missile specialist at the Oslo Nuclear Project.

Sanctions imposed by the global community, frantic spending on the war in Ukraine to the exclusion of other priorities, and isolation from Western technologies are intensifying the deterioration of Russia's defense industry, said Alexander Kovalenko, an analyst for the website InfoResist.

'Close to the doomsday scenarios'

"Because of the sanctions, Russia can't fully develop its missile building," Kovalenko said.

Meanwhile, North Korea's weapon program remains "central to its national security strategy," with an estimated 50 warheads and enough fissile material to potentially grow that number to 90, according to the report.

The world may be entering a new kind of arms race -- one not only measured in warhead totals but in emerging technologies, said Smith.

"It's an arms race which is going to be highly technological," he said, taking place "in outer space and in cyberspace."

Artificial intelligence is expected to increasingly shape the future of nuclear warfare.

"The next step would be moving towards full automation. That is a step that must never be taken," Smith cautioned. "If our prospects of being free of the danger of nuclear war were to be left in the hands of an artificial intelligence, I think that then we would be close to the doomsday scenarios."

As geopolitical instability mounts, Smith concluded: "We see the warning signs of a new nuclear arms race coming."