Type 004 aircraft carrier

The Type 004 aircraft carrier is an upcoming class of supercarriers for the Chinese People's Liberation Army Navy. The yet-unnamed lead ship of the class is currently in construction at the Dalian Shipyard since 2024,^[7] and is the fourth aircraft carrier of the Chinese aircraft carrier programme and the third to be built indigenously by China.

Class overview
Operators	People's Liberation Army Navy
Preceded by	Type 003 Fujian
Planned	4[1] (estimate)
Building	1
General characteristics
Class & type	Type 004
Type	Aircraft carrier
Displacement	Up to 110,000 tons[2][3]
Propulsion	Nuclear marine propulsion
Speed	At least 30 kn (56 km/h; 35 mph)[4]
Aircraft carried	70 to 100 helicopters and fixed wing aircraft,[5] including J-15T multirole fighters, J-35 stealth fighters, KJ-600 AEW&C aircraft, HZ-20 ASW/utility helicopters, and stealth attack drones.[6]
Aviation facilities	3-4 EM catapults, hangar deck

Like the proceeding Type 003 carrier Fujian, the Type 004 carriers will be capable of catapult-assisted takeoff but arrested recovery (CATOBAR) operations via the same DC-supercapacitor electromagnetic catapult system jointly developed by the China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation and the Chinese Academy of Engineering. Unlike the conventionally-powered Fujian, the Type 004 will be much larger and also likely the first Chinese surface warship to feature nuclear marine propulsion.^[8][9]

China hoped to complete the carrier by the late 2020s, and indicated that up to four ships might be built.^[1] In October 2025, satellite imagery of the Dalian Shipyard showed the first stages of keel-laying and hull construction for the supposed Type 004 carrier.^[10]

Design

Nuclear propulsion

In 2017, the Chinese Central Government was reportedly ready to spend RMB 22 billion (USD$3.3 billion) on the development of two prototype TMSR-LF1 thorium-based molten-salt reactors to be built at Wuwei, Gansu province in northwestern China, aiming to have the reactors operational by 2020.^[11]

In December 2023, Jiangnan Shipyard has unveiled plans of KUN-24AP, a 24,000 TEU nuclear-powered container ship designed to use Gen IV molten-salt reactors for propulsion.^[12] The PLA Navy is interested in the same technology to power large surface warships as part of China's military-civil fusion strategy.^{[13][needs update]}

Aviation

The Type 004 could carry a larger complement of fixed-wing and rotorwing carrier-based aircraft than previous Chinese aircraft carriers, including the catapult-ready J-15T and J-35 fighters, Xian KJ-600 AEW&C aircraft, HZ-20 utility/ASW helicopters and stealth attack drones such as the GJ-21.^[6]

It was previously suggested that the aircraft carrier might carry J-20 stealth-fighter aircraft.^[14] However, in a programme in 2017 on China Central Television, retired PLAN Rear Admiral Zhang Zhaozhong dismissed the possibility that the J-20 aircraft would be used on aircraft carriers as the aircraft was not structurally designed to cope with carrier operations.^[15] In addition, the plane does not have folding wings for compact storage, and its stealth coating would be susceptible to degradation while at sea.^[15]

History

Construction

In November 2024, reports were published that China was in the process of building a land-based prototype nuclear reactor for a large surface warship.^[16] According to Associated Press, and based on new analysis of satellite imagery and Chinese government documents, this was a clear sign that China was starting to produce its first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.^[16] The Middlebury Institute of International Studies in California was reported to have said that a mountain site outside the city of Leshan in the southwest Chinese province of Sichuan was the place where the prototype reactor was being developed.^[17]

On 13 February 2025, reports and images surfaced that showed construction work on a module consistent with an aircraft carrier being carried out at a shipyard in Dalian, in Liaoning province.^[18][19] The module apparently was a section of the flight deck and was seen in satellite imagery provided by Google Earth in May 2024. In early 2024, analysts observed, sections of the C3 and C4 catapults were also being built for testing near the dock in Dalian where the second Chinese aircraft carrier Shandong was built from 2013 to 2016.^[20]

According to the South China Morning Post, commercial satellite photographs posted on Chinese social media at the end of September 2025 very probably showed new hull sections of the Type 004 aircraft carrier being built at the shipyard in Dalian, Liaoning.^[21] The sections were not visible in satellite imagery from August 2025, making a start to the hull of the aircraft carrier in September 2025 convincing.^[21]

See also

• Chinese aircraft carrier programme