North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called for an “exponential” expansion of the country’s atomic arsenal during a visit to a newly operational nuclear material production factory, state media agency KCNA said on Thursday.

Kim said production capacity for weapons-grade nuclear material had reached more than double its previous level over the past five years and instructed officials to further increase output to meet long-term strategic goals.

During the visit, he was briefed on new production processes incorporating more advanced technology and reviewed current output targets and future plans, KCNA reported.

Photographs published by state media showed Kim walking between rows of cylinder-shaped equipment inside the facility, which some analysts said could indicate the location is at the country’s main nuclear complex in Yongbyon.

Kim said the expansion was necessary given what he called worsening security threats and long-term confrontation with “the most ferocious enemies” and reaffirmed the country’s policy of increasing its nuclear deterrence.

KCNA said a key consultative meeting on bolstering nuclear forces was held the same day, at which Kim outlined guidelines for accelerating both the qualitative and quantitative expansion of North Korea’s nuclear arsenal.

The country has set out the sequence and safeguards for executing an “ambitious future plan designed to beef up our states nuclear forces at an exponential rate,” KCNA quoted Kim as saying.

This is a “historic event that has set up an epochal milestone in rapidly upgrading our nuclear capabilities,” he added.

Potential Xi visit to Pyongyang

The nuclear facility North Korea unveiled on Thursday was a uranium-enrichment site, an official at South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said at a briefing in Seoul.

Analysts said Kim’s visit appeared aimed at reinforcing North Korea’s negotiating position ahead of potential diplomatic engagement while justifying an acceleration of its nuclear build-up.

Chad OCarroll, founder of North Korea-focused website NK News, said the site visit could be linked to a potential trip by Chinese President Xi Jinping to Pyongyang, noting that before travelling to Beijing in September 2025, Kim inspected plans for a new intercontinental ballistic missile, the “Hwasong-20”.

“The logic would be to demonstrate absolutely that denuclearisation is not possible, right on the eve of contact with the PRC (People’s Republic of China),” OCarroll said.

Lim Eul-chul, a professor at South Koreas Kyungnam University’s Institute for Far Eastern Studies, also linked Kim’s latest visit to Seoul’s pursuit of a nuclear-powered submarine and its talks with Washington over uranium enrichment rights, which he said Pyongyang may be using to justify accelerating its weapons programme.

“Even if South Korea does not proceed, the North will follow its own path, but such developments provide a convenient pretext to push its nuclear build-up faster and on a larger scale,” Lim said.

North Korea is estimated to possess around 50 nuclear warheads, according to international assessments, though it has never disclosed the size of its arsenal.