The Pakistan military establishment is racing to overhaul its defence architecture after the technological failures exposed during Operation Sindoor in May 2025. During the high intensity exchange, Indian precision strikes neutralised strategic Pakistani assets, bypassing Chinese supplied air defence systems such as the HQ-9P. The episode has triggered an urgent reassessment inside Rawalpindi and forced a pivot towards directed energy weapons, secure digital infrastructure, and hardened electronic warfare networks.
A central element of this response is emergency procurement of laser-based air defence. The Pakistan Navy has sought two 10 kW Laser Weapon Systems for its ships. The requirement, that has been shared with potential suppliers, is an explicit attempt to narrow the widening gap with India’s directed energy capabilities. In April 2025, India demonstrated its indigenous Mk-II(A) directed energy weapon, a 30 kW laser capable of destroying drones and surveillance sensors at extended ranges. This programme is already being scaled under the DURGA II project, which targets a 100 kW lightweight laser suitable for warships and airborne platforms.
Pakistan’s naval officers have demanded a system capable of hard kill against drone swarms with a response time below 0.5 seconds and a growth path to 30 kW output. The system must integrate with shipboard Combat Management Systems and include its own EO IR tracking suite for autonomous operation. The emphasis on Interface Control Documents suggests a desire for partial indigenous integration rather than sealed foreign systems. Given these parameters, inputs available with this newspaper indicate that Chinese defence conglomerates CASIC and Turkey’s Aselsan are widely viewed as the most viable suppliers.
Parallel to hardware up-grades, Pakistan is attempting to address the intelligence collapse witnessed during Operation Sindoor. Its intelligence agency, the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) has launched a sensitive large scale Intelligence Consolidation programme anchored in data centre virtualisation, for which it will be spending around 12 billion PKR. The objective is to allow multiple isolated virtual environments to run on shared physical servers, enabling large scale SIGINT processing while limiting systemic failure.
This architecture is designed to prevent total intelligence blackout. If one virtual environment is compromised through cyber intrusion or electronic deception, other environments remain insulated. The shift reflects a recognition that future conflicts will target data pipelines and processing nodes as aggressively as physical assets.
Electronic warfare hardening forms the third pillar of Pakistan’s recalibration. This is a direct response to the Indian Air Force’s Ground Based Very Ultra High Frequency jammer developed by Bharat Electronics Limited. The GBVU can disrupt communications across a bandwidth approaching 1,000 MHz and can also geolocate and characterise enemy emitters in real time. This dual capability turns the jammer into a targeting sensor that links electronic warfare directly with kinetic strike options.
To counter this, Pakistan is prioritising acquisition of High Frequency Direction Finding systems that can detect and triangulate hostile Indian jamming sources. The aim is to regain situational awareness under electronic attack, allow rapid frequency agility, and preserve secure communication between regional commands and General Headquarters. In extremis, such systems could also cue counter-strikes against Indian electronic warfare assets.
The surge of more than 30 potential procurement covering lasers, virtualisation infrastructure, and electronic warfare sensors amounts to a tacit admission of the vulnerabilities exposed in May 2025. Pakistan is attempting to move away from overreliance on opaque Chinese black box systems that failed to deter or absorb Indian precision strikes.
