China’s optical clock now officially helps set global time, promising accuracy to one second over billions of years
- The Chinese optical strontium clock now participates directly in the international calculation of atomic time
- Optical clocks operate at higher frequencies than cesium, allowing finer measurement resolution
- Claimed accuracy reaches one second over billions or tens of billions of years
China has received formal international recognition for an ultra-precise optical grating clock after its calibration data was accepted into the global timekeeping system.
The approval allows the country’s NIM-Sr1 strontium atomic optical array clock to directly participate in international atomic timekeeping, a role previously dominated by a few countries using cesium-based standards.
This shift moves China from an indirect data contributor to an integral part of the central mechanism that defines global time.
Entry into international time calibration
The clock, developed by the National Institute of Metrology, was successfully examined by the International Bureau of Weights and Measures, which oversees the world time standard.
Its data has now been integrated into the system used to calculate international standard time, meaning that the clock’s measurements are no longer experimental benchmarks but are actively used alongside other leading atomic clocks around the world.
Such participation reflects a level of stability and repeatability that must be demonstrated consistently over long periods of time.
Traditional cesium atomic clocks set the current international second and can remain accurate to the second for hundreds of millions of years.
Optical clocks are important because they operate at much higher frequencies, allowing for much greater measurement accuracy than cesium clocks, which, in practical terms, allows for accuracy on the scale of a second over billions or even tens of billions of years, at least under controlled conditions.
Such precision goes beyond what is required for everyday timekeeping, yet it becomes essential for advanced scientific and engineering systems.
For example, ultra-precise clocks form the backbone of satellite navigation, telecommunications synchronization, high-frequency commercial systems, and deep space exploration.
Small timing errors can turn into large positional or coordination errors across global networks, and as systems become more interconnected and faster, tolerance for temporal drift continues to decrease.
Optical clocks are widely expected to replace cesium clocks as the basis for redefining the second in the future.
Participating in international benchmarking allows a country to influence the unfolding of this transition, rather than adapting to standards established elsewhere.
It also provides redundancy in the global system, which relies on contributions from multiple independent laboratories to maintain stability.
Beyond civilian applications, precise national timekeeping enables secure communications and independent operation during periods when international coordination may be disrupted.
Additionally, this clock reduces reliance on a single clock and improves the resiliency of timekeeping operations.
Via ITHome (originally in Chinese)
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