TL;DR
Cheap drones have become one of the hardest things to stop, and the answer taking shape around the world is a beam of light. China is the latest to say it has one working. Chinese state media report that "Guangjian" ground-based lasers, built by AVIC, met several waves of low-flying drones coming from different directions in the Gobi Desert, and that the drones caught fire and crashed before reaching their simulated target. No power, range or drone count was given, and the account reaches the outside world only through state media, but it adds China to a fast-growing list of countries that say their lasers can knock drones out of the sky. The real tell is in the plumbing: a new cooling material said to have held stable temperatures through 30 minutes of continuous laser operation. To see our odds on when drone-killing lasers become standard equipment, country by country, and the timeline of tests that leads there, subscribe.
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