Faced with the huge military potential of atomic clocks, the world's major military powers have increased their investment.

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is developing a new generation of atomic clocks and plans to integrate them into military systems. This new atomic clock is not only highly accurate, but also small and light, and can be deployed on combat platforms such as fighter jets and submarines. In 2022, DARPA released the Resilient Optical Clock Network Program to develop low-size, low-weight, and low-power optical atomic clocks that can operate outside the laboratory, with accuracy and retention rates exceeding the most advanced atomic clocks currently available.

European countries have adopted a joint research and development strategy and have achieved good results. In June 2022, the French Defense Procurement Agency announced the development of a new generation of ultra-small, high-performance atomic clocks to maintain France's technological sovereignty in navigation, positioning, precision guidance, and encrypted military communications. In January 2025, the UK Ministry of Defense announced that its Defense Science and Technology Laboratory is using quantum technology to develop a "revolutionary" atomic clock to enhance the security of military operations, with a time measurement error of only 1 second in billions of years. On January 17, 2025, according to the top international journal Physical Review Letters, the German National Metrology Institute has made a major breakthrough in the field of optical atomic clocks, developing a new type of ion crystal optical atomic clock with an uncertainty of more than 18 decimal places, setting a new world record.

In order to catch up with the international advanced level, Russia is also unwilling to be outdone. Russia is developing a new atomic clock to improve the positioning accuracy of its GLONASS navigation system. Russia is also exploring the application of atomic clocks in missile early warning systems to improve the speed and accuracy of early warning.

From the precise correction of missile flight trajectories to the time coordination of satellite networking, atomic clocks have achieved "accuracy of thousands of miles" with "nanosecond precision", and have become an important support for modern military technology and an important guarantee for national security. It can be foreseen that with the continuous advancement of atomic clock technology, its application in the military field will be more extensive, and its impact on modern warfare will be more far-reaching.