China’s recent milestone in extending its home-grown satellite internet coverage to polar regions has given the country “fully self-controlled polar communications”, ending its long-time reliance on foreign technology to achieve the same capability, according to state media and industry experts.

The breakthrough came during trials conducted as part of China’s 16th Arctic expedition – launched in early July and expected to conclude this month – when scientists aboard vessels in the Arctic established video connections with the Qinling research station in Antarctica using domestic satellites, according to a Monday report by the state-backed People’s Daily.

Li Taoyang, analyst at China Securities, said the accomplishment, made possible using the home-grown GW satellite constellation, “filled a critical gap in China’s ability to maintain independently controlled, end-to-end satellite communications in polar regions”.

“In the short term, [China’s] polar communication is pivoting from reliance on foreign technologies towards a domestically controlled system,” Li wrote in a note to clients earlier this month.

During the trial, the video communications had a transmission latency of less than 1 second, allowing researchers at opposite ends of the planet to communicate in near real time.

Other tasks, from the exchange of scientific expedition data to real-time transmission of voyage logs, were also validated during the expedition, underscoring the growing capabilities of the GW constellation, developed by the state-backed China Satellite Network Group (China SatNet).

The GW network supports peak upload and download speeds of more than 30 megabits per second, enough to handle multiple high-definition video links and parallel transmission of scientific expedition data.

A total of 300 files containing over 100 gigabytes of data were transmitted and more than 40 video connections were made during expedition testing, according to the People’s Daily report. Beyond scientific explorations, the technology could also support maritime communications and emergency rescue operations.

It was used for remote medical consultations, allowing doctors in the eastern Chinese city of Qingdao to assess expedition members who fell ill via video links, according to the People’s Daily report.

The move comes as China accelerates deployment of its GW satellite constellation to challenge Western providers that already provide satellite broadband coverage to polar areas and other remote locations.

China SatNet’s GW constellation plans to deploy nearly 13,000 satellites by 2035, with an interim target of around 1,300 by the end of 2029.

Despite its ambitious plans, it remains far behind Elon Musk’s SpaceX, whose Starlink network already operates around 11,000 satellites and has provided connectivity in the Arctic since 2022, giving the US company a substantial head start in polar communications.

China launched the expedition to survey Arctic sea ice and study ecological and atmospheric environmental changes as part of an investigation into global climate change and its impact, according to a separate report by the state broadcaster CCTV.

An unmanned survey network was deployed in the central Arctic Ocean during the expedition. It consists of domestic equipment including buoys and was supported by the GW satellite constellations to collect year-round data on sea ice and ocean conditions, according to He Jianfeng, chief scientist of the 16th Arctic expedition.

He added that less expensive Chinese equipment would allow researchers to economically build a large-scale survey network, allowing the country to make greater contributions in understanding and responding to climate change and push for sustainable Arctic development.

The advances come as Beijing steps up efforts to turn home-grown tech breakthroughs into practical applications across industries, from exploration to retail and logistics.

The Ministry of Commerce and eight other government agencies issued a draft policy last week, calling for greater use of domestic technologies from AI, cloud computing and embodied intelligence to improve industrial efficiency and create new drivers of economic growth.

The guidelines pledged support for the commercialisation of frontier technologies, including embodied AI, while expanding access to computing resources and strengthening data security, underscoring Beijing’s push for technological self-reliance.