India expands nuclear arsenal to 190, deploys 12 warheads by 2026 – how does Pakistan compare | SIPRI Report | Today’s news
India is projected to slightly expand its nuclear arsenal again in 2025, overtaking Pakistan, North Korea and Israel, according to data published in the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) Yearbook 2026.
SIPRI launched its annual assessment of the state of armaments, disarmament and international security on Monday 8 June.
The key findings of SIPRI’s 2026 yearbook showed that nine nuclear-armed states – the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (North Korea) and Israel – “continued programs to modernize and strengthen their nuclear arsenals in 2025…”
Read also | Why some GOP-led states are adopting Nuclear Family Month during Pride Month
Nuclear Arsenal of India vs Pakistan
According to the report, India has a total inventory of 190 warheads as of January 2026, while Pakistan’s inventory stands at 170. India has also deployed 12 nuclear warheads as of January 2026, the report claims.
The report states: “India is projected to have slightly expanded its nuclear arsenal again in 2025 and continued to develop new types of nuclear delivery systems.”
“The modernization program is increasingly focused on developing long-range weapons capable of hitting targets across China, although planning also continues to focus on India’s long-term rivalry with Pakistan,” the report added.
In Pakistan, the SIPRI report noted that in 2025 the country continued to develop new transportation systems and stockpile fissile material (such as uranium-235 or plutonium-239).
Read also | India, Pakistan, China — Full list of countries that can use the Strait of Hormuz
This suggests that Pakistan’s “nuclear arsenal could expand in the coming decade”.
The report also briefly mentioned the conflict between India and Pakistan in May 2025. It stated: “…world events – not least the outbreak of conflict between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan – call into question the logic of nuclear deterrence.”
Notably, India launched Operation Sindoor, a military exercise to destroy terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan, in May 2025 in response to the Pahalgam terror attack that left 26 dead in April.
The world’s nuclear arsenal has been expanded and modernized
As of January 2026, the nine nuclear powers have a combined 12,187 warheads. Of the total global stockpile, up to 9,745 were in military stockpiles for potential use.
An estimated 4,012 of these warheads were deployed with missiles and aircraft and the rest were in a central storage facility, the SIPRI report added. Between 2,100 and 2,200 deployed warheads were kept on high operational alert against ballistic missiles, it claimed.
Read also | Trump now claims 11 ‘expensive’ planes shot down during Indo-Pak conflict
“Almost all of these warheads belonged to Russia or the US and, to a lesser extent, France and the UK, but China and India may now occasionally deploy a small number of missile-mounted warheads in peacetime,” SIPRI said in a press release on Monday.
Credit: SIPRI Yearbook 2026
“The joint share of Russia and the US is shrinking”
The report states that Russia and the US together possess about 83 percent of all stockpiles of nuclear warheads (usable warheads).
“However, this combined share is shrinking somewhat due to the growth of the world’s other nuclear arsenals,” SIPRI said.
The size of Russian and US military stockpiles appear to have remained relatively stable in 2025, but both states’ extensive modernization programs seem likely to increase the size and diversity of their arsenals in the future, he added.
