Commissioned research on China's technology and industrial base.
Open-source intelligence engagements built on Datenna's proprietary data and delivered by our in-house China analysts. Capability assessments, ecosystem maps, entity deep-dives. For defence, intelligence, and corporate teams.
Vacuum Electronic Devices and High-Power Microwave: PRC Capability Trajectory
The questions that matter most about China cannot be answered with dashboards alone.
Where does a Chinese technology programme actually sit on the path from research to operational deployment? Which actors really matter? How is capability funded, transferred, and operationalised? These questions need primary-source data on China at a scale almost nobody holds, the language fluency to read it, and the analytical methodology to turn it into a defensible answer. Generalist consultancies do not have the data. Data providers do not have the analysts.
Five questions. One body of evidence.
Every research engagement we run starts with one of these. The data foundation, methodology, and analyst team are built to answer them across any technology, any actor, any sector of China's industrial base.
Where does this technology sit on the path to operational use?
Read research output, patent activity, and procurement records together to assess where a given technology sits on the path from laboratory to field deployment.
Which entities are the highest-priority nodes in this ecosystem?
Identify the specific institutes, companies, and individuals whose combined research output, IP holdings, and procurement activity place them at the centre of capability development.
How are research, patents, and procurement evolving over time?
Track filing rates, funding volumes, and procurement growth. Read the pace and direction of change as a signal of where China's investment priorities are heading.
What hidden affiliations and dual-use relationships sit behind a capability?
Trace corporate structures, subsidiary networks, and investment chains. Surface the affiliations and dual-use relationships behind the technology.
Which actors drive this technology, and how are they distributed?
Classify the academic, corporate, state-owned, and military-linked actors in the ecosystem. Map their distribution across China's institutional landscape.
Primary-source data on China. At the scale research demands.
Datenna operates the most comprehensive structured-data infrastructure on China's economic, academic, and industrial landscape. Sourced, cleaned, enriched, and risk-labelled in-house. No reliance on Chinese providers.
Where the funding goes.
NSFC and MOST grants spanning decades. Reveals research priorities, funding volumes, and institutional mandates from foundational science to applied work.
What gets invented.
CNIPA filings from 1984 to present. Tracks IP ownership, inventor networks, technology maturity, and cross-sector diffusion from lab to field.
What reaches the field.
Public tender records linking R&D outputs to end-user acquisition. Confirms operational deployment and identifies defence-sector buyer networks across China.
Five engagement types. Deployable independently or combined.
Every engagement is bespoke to the question. These are the analytical products our research team builds with.
S&T Ecosystem Assessment
Maps a technology domain from research to deployment. Identifies the key actors, where intellectual property concentrates, procurement patterns, and how far China has progressed.
Entity Intelligence
Deep dive on Chinese entities. Ownership structure, funding trails, R&D and procurement activity, and networks of connected entities. Across any company, institution, or research entity in China.
S&T Program Reconstruction
Traces a technology programme's development trajectory from research to deployment. Publications, citation networks, personnel movements, component breakdowns.
Personnel and Career Path Tracking
Tracks researchers across institutions, identifies programme leadership, and surfaces knowledge-transfer patterns between civilian and defence sectors.
Knowledge Lineage
Detects foreign technology absorption, citation networks, and dual-use research collaborations. Traces where capability originated and how it was transferred.
A repeatable, multi-stage process.
The same six-stage workflow runs on every engagement. Findings are comparable, methodology is auditable, evidence is traceable to source.
Keyword taxonomy
Domain-specific vocabularies spanning materials, systems, manufacturing methods, and performance parameters. Built to extract relevant signal from millions of records.
Entity classification
Every actor in scope classified across five categories. Enables targeted analysis of defence-sector involvement, supply chain roles, and dual-use exposure.
Cross-source scoring
A Total Activity Score ranks organisations across research, patents, and procurement simultaneously. Identifies who is most active and strategically significant in the ecosystem.
Network and relationship mapping
Maps relationships between buyers, suppliers, and R&D institutions. Exposes vertical integration, hidden affiliations, and concentration risks across the supply chain.
Technical deep-dives
Focused investigation of priority sub-topics. Technology maturity, individual actor spotlights, patent portfolio analysis. Calibrated to the question the engagement is built around.
Desk research and OSINT
Analysts supplement structured data with open-source enrichment. Scientific papers, corporate filings, career paths, citation networks. 3,500+ sources continuously monitored across Chinese-language media, government channels, academic press, and sector-specific publications.
Selected research, 2023 to 2026.
Capability assessments, ecosystem maps, and entity deep-dives delivered to defence, intelligence, and corporate clients across Europe and North America.
Mapping PRC capability development, supply chains, and acquisition pathways.
Reads research, patents, and procurement together to track a technology end-to-end.
- Single-Mode Fiber Lasers
- Ceramic Matrix Composites
- Vacuum Electronic Devices and High-Power Microwave
- High-Energy Laser Optics: Mirrors and Coatings
- Ceramic Laser Media for High-Power Laser Systems
- Cross-Medium UAVs: Air-Water Hybrid Platforms
- Little Giants: Innovation via Patenting
- Quantum Computing and Data Centers
- High-Performance Computing Academic Landscape
- Chinese UUV Capabilities
- AI and the PLA: Procurement Insights
Deep dives on Chinese entities, their ownership, and their networks.
Surfaces ownership architecture, R&D and procurement activity, and connected-entity networks.
- Mapping the Network of CETC (China Electronics Technology Group Corporation)
- Mapping the Network of CASIC (China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation)
- Analysis of CASC Procurements (China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation)
- Intelligence on China's Drone World Conference Participants
- Chinese FDI in Europe's EV Sector
- Chinese Investments in Semiconductors and US Export Controls
What the work actually looks like.
Three engagements with hard numbers and named findings. Each delivered as a structured report to a defence or intelligence client.
China's Little Giants: Innovation via Patenting
Measuring innovation behaviour across thousands of designated Little Giants using patent filing rates, technology topic analysis, and co-assignee network mapping.
- Nearly two-thirds of designated Little Giants reduced patent filing rates after designation. A minority of overachievers pulled the mean to +22% while the median fell 24.5%.
- Digital technology dominates CET-linked filings. 60% of CET-labelled patents centre on autonomous systems, advanced materials, and AI. Direct alignment with Made in China 2025 strategic priorities.
- Defence co-authorship is documented and traceable. 868 Little Giants carry DEF labels, 546 hold CET-linked patents, and 14 are confirmed co-filing with PLA units across Rocket Force, Strategic Support Force, and the People's Liberation Army Navy.
Vacuum Electronic Devices and High-Power Microwave
Assessing China's HPM/VED research base, CETC dominance, and application maturity across operational domains.
- China holds up to 90% of global HPM-related patents. Defence research topics surged 84% from 2010 to 2019. The Hurricane 3000, China's first vehicle-mounted HPM anti-drone system, confirms operational deployment.
- Development has shifted from device physics to compact, field-deployable architectures. Megawatt-class microwave generation chains are approaching operational readiness.
- Civilian fusion and radar programmes are the main dual-use vectors. High-power RF from tokamak and accelerator programmes is directly transferable to directed energy. A parallel development pathway.
Ceramic Laser Media for High-Power Laser Systems
Mapping China's ceramic laser gain media ecosystem. IP concentration, actor capabilities, and defence procurement uptake.
- A five-fold patent surge since the early 2000s. 71% held by defence-linked actors. The 2024 spike to 17 procurement contracts, all from defence-industrial buyers, signals a shift to application-driven demand.
- SICCAS is China's premier actor, spanning powder synthesis to commercial yttrium aluminium garnet supply. Leads the dataset in patents and maintains direct defence-industry ties.
- China has secured YAG at production scale. Investment is shifting to sesquioxides, the material family decisive for next-generation directed-energy performance, where China is at the international research frontier.
Six to eight weeks. Three feedback windows. One report.
Every engagement runs six to eight weeks from topic receipt to final delivery, calibrated to scope and complexity. Three structured client checkpoints throughout. Not a one-way handover at the end. A continuous dialogue that keeps the research aligned to what you actually need to know.
Early scoping alignment
Proposed approach, methodology, and macro-structure agreed with you before analysis begins. Ensures we are pointing at the right question, with the right method, before the team starts work.
Mid-engagement review
A substantive draft shared partway through. Direction and emphasis can be adjusted while it still matters, not after the report is bound. The most important checkpoint in the engagement.
Final integration
Your feedback integrated into the final deliverable. Briefings, presentations, or follow-up Q&A sessions can be scoped on top. The completed report answers the question you actually asked.
The data and the people who read it.
Open-source intelligence on China at this depth requires both. The proprietary data infrastructure, sourced and processed in-house. And an analyst team with the language fluency, sector expertise, and methodology to turn it into intelligence you can act on. Almost nobody else has both under one roof.
Proprietary, primary-source, processed in-house.
- Companies and institutes50M+ entities, 27K+ research bodies
- R&D and IP845K+ projects, 45M+ patents
- Procurement6.5M+ records, military and state
- People79M+ profiles
- Sources monitored3,500+, continuously
In-house China analysts. Native fluency, sector depth.
- Combined China expertise150+ years on the bench
- Language fluencyNative and near-native Chinese
- Sector coverageSemiconductors, materials, directed energy, autonomy, quantum, AI, aerospace, biotech
- MethodologySix-stage process, auditable findings
- Data engineeringIn-house, alongside the analysts
Independent. European-incorporated.
Eindhoven and Washington DC. Independently owned, European-incorporated. Operating under frameworks governments trust to handle China intelligence. Advisory board including the former Chief of MI6 and the former Deputy Director of Dutch civilian intelligence.
Practical questions.
Have a question on China you cannot answer? Bring it to us.
Tell us the question, the audience, and the timing. We will come back with scope, methodology, and a cost estimate.
Contact us