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Zhang Tong

A private company in China providing intelligence-gathering services to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) claims to have intercepted radio signals from American stealth bombers that struck Iran on March 1 as part of the US-Israel military action.
Jingan Technology, a defence technology firm based in east China’s Hangzhou, also asserted that it detected signals linked to US military activities well before tensions with Iran escalated, using artificial intelligence (AI) to analyse early indicators.
According to the company, its Jingqi war monitoring system reconstructed the sequence of the US military build-up that occurred in the weeks leading up to the operation, which began on February 28.
The Jingqi system integrates satellite imagery, aviation trajectory data and public military records to interpret transport aircraft routes, reconnaissance flight patterns, the types of vehicles stationed at military bases and aircraft carrier strike group movements.
On February 6, at the start of US-Iran talks on the future of the Iranian missile programme, Jingqi reportedly analysed open-source intelligence and identified that there had been a steady increase in American military deployments around Iran.

The company said the system concluded as early as January that the United States had begun amassing its largest military build-up in the Middle East in nearly two decades – one that surpassed the scale of deployments seen during the Iraq war.
On March 1, the US Air Force launched the four B-2A stealth strategic bombers – with the call signs Petro 41 through Petro 44 – as part of Operation Epic Fury, striking key Iranian targets including missile facilities hidden within mountain complexes.
The following day, Jingan Technology said in a post on its official social media account that its Jingqi system detected radio communications from the bombers during their return leg, despite the US military’s policy of maintaining strict communication silence in public channels during operations.
The company said it was able to reconstruct the group’s flight path and released an audio clip to back up its claims.
Jingan Technology declined interview requests regarding the incident.
According to the company website, the Jingqi system is designed for strategic early warning, military deployment monitoring and intelligence gathering in real-world combat environments.
This is not the first time the system has attracted attention. Another social media post from the company claimed that, ahead of Chinese New Year, it intercepted radio transmissions from multiple US B-52 Stratofortress bombers on deterrence patrols near Taiwan and the South China Sea.
Jingan Technology is reported to have ties to Chinese military institutions. The Jingqi system featured prominently in the background of a Chinese New Year broadcast of a visit to the PLA Information Support Force by President Xi Jinping.
Founded in 2021, the company describes its workforce as a mix of intelligence community veterans and former engineers from major Chinese tech firms such as Alibaba Cloud, Huawei and Baidu.
Alibaba Cloud is the cloud computing and data intelligence arm of Alibaba Group, which also owns the South China Morning Post.
In addition to the military, Jingan’s client base includes state security agencies, public security bureaus and state-owned defence enterprises such as Norinco and China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation or Casic.




The episode highlights the growing role of AI agents in modern warfare – from intelligence gathering and analysis to operational planning.
The Washington Post reported that the US military used Anthropic’s AI tool Claude and Palantir’s Maven Smart System in its recent Middle East operations.
These systems can automatically identify targets and assess threats, based on analysis of vast streams of sensor data, and then relay strike recommendations directly to commanders.
The targeting timeline has shrunk dramatically. A process that once took up to 72 hours has been reduced to a matter of hours. According to defence analysts, the ultimate goal is to compress the entire kill chain – detect, assess, strike and assess again – into mere minutes.
Beyond the battlefield, AI-generated content is muddying public understanding of the conflict, prompting the social media platform X to announce it would penalise users in its revenue-sharing programme if they shared AI-generated war content without disclosure.
On March 3, Nikita Bier, head of products at X, noted that “virtually every single one [of fake war videos] posted on X in the last 48 hours has Sora metadata. With today’s AI technologies, it is trivial to create content that can mislead people.”
Sora is a video-creation product developed by OpenAI.
The US-Iran confrontation may be offering a glimpse into the future of warfare – one in which AI has become the newest and most contested frontier in great-power military competition.
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Chinese firm claims it intercepted B-2 radio signal during US strike on Iran

A United States Air Force B-2 stealth strategic bomber. Photo: Handout

The Jingqi monitoring system is said to have tracked a US B-2 stealth bomber as it returned from its mission over Iran on March 1. Image: Handout 

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An Iranian naval vessel just before it is struck ‘near the Strait of Hormuz’, according to the US. Photo: US Central Command via AFP

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China

Defence technology company says its Jingqi monitoring system detected communications after bombing mission


Defence technology company says its Jingqi monitoring system detected communications after bombing mission.


Chinese firm claims it intercepted B-2 radio signal during US strike on Iran

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Defence technology company says its Jingqi monitoring system detected communications after bombing mission

Defence technology company says its Jingqi monitoring system detected communications after bombing mission