China will build the first submarine base for scientific exploration drones.
The project - named "Hades" (the underworld of Greek mythology) was launched last month by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and will have an estimated cost of 160 million dollars.
The base will be built in the Hadal area, the deepest part of the ocean, at a depth between the 6.000 and the 11.000 meters.
A likely location could be the Fossa of Manila, the only place of the South China Sea with depth greater than 5.000 meters, where the Eurasian plate meets that of the Pacific.
The Hadal area is of great scientific interest due to the high seismicity that will allow scientists to analyze the chemical substances emanating from the earth's mantle, and is located near Scarborough Shoal, a rocky profile for which China and the Philippines arrived two years ago very close to a fight.
The South China Sea, in fact, has become a sea mirror among the most disputed on the planet, with seven countries claiming large portions, not only for geopolitical reasons but also for the huge natural resources that it holds in the depths.
Its abysses are a unique environment, where high pressure, erosion, morphological characteristics combined with frequent seismic activity contribute to create a very extreme environment.
Professor Du Qinghai, a researcher at the University of Shanghai, told the South Morning Post that the construction of the base will be "piIt is difficult to build a space station (...) and it will be like building a colony on another planet ", whereas "No country has ever attempted such a thing".
The base will be bound with steel cables to a mother ship, however able to carry out "autonomous" missions thanks to artificial intelligence.
In fact, it will have docking platforms from which the submarine drones will be sent to inspect the seabed, study the present life forms and collect samples of minerals to be sent to the surface.
The base for drones is not the only ocean project that Beijing is working on.
Among the many, there would also be an underwater submarine station, at 3 km of depth, able to accommodate for a month more than ten people and twenty floating nuclear power plants, the first of which operating within the 2020.
The interest in the exploration of the seabed is based not only on scientific motivations - (the 90% of the backdrops, which represent the 70% of the globe is still unexplored) - but indicates more than anything the will of Beijing to - to say it with the words of Xi Jinping - "proceed towards the sea to accelerate the establishment of the Chinese maritime power".
A long process of transformation, military and industrial, in which artificial intelligence - which will see China as world leader within the 2030 - and its colossal manufacturing capacity, will forge a superpower that will mark the future of the planet.
(photo: Xinhua)
