Is it a tank, or is it a car? China and the United States are in a race to develop new “cloaking” technology to hide their military technology from each other’s spying eyes.

News reports from inside China this week have boasted of a new stealth technology that will bend light around and object to conceal its presence – or even change its form. And they insist the method is legitimate.

The South China Morning Post reports the Chinese army has funded at least 40 research teams over the past three years to develop the idea. The teams involved include researchers at Tsinghua University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

“We are invisible people studying invisible technology,” said a researcher involved in the project.

Arms developers such as BAE Systems acknowledge work on this kind of technology which aims to hide armored vehicles.

“The US military is among many who have expressed interest in Adaptiv, which could be transferred to other platforms, such as ships and helicopters,” said Mike Sweeney, a spokesman for BAE.

BAE’s technology deploys sheets of hexagonal “pixels” that can change temperature very rapidly. On-board cameras pick up the scenery and display it on the vehicle, which can allow a moving tank to match its surroundings. It can also be adapted to change the infra-red “look” of the tank to that of a normal car.

The Chinese appear to be focusing on “invisibility” in the visible spectrum.

“The main approaches are developing materials that guide light away from an object, creating electromagnetic fields to bend light away from what one is trying to hide and copying nature to make hi-tech camouflage materials,” the South China Morning Post reported.

One technique has been demonstrated by Professor Chen Hongsheng at Zhejiang University. Last month he released a video of a fish and cat appearing to be made invisible.

Early forms of the technology are already concealing equipment from electronic eyes.

The South China Morning Post says Zhejiang University is soon to announce a device that stops objects being detected by heat sensors or metal detectors.

“Many people have asked me if the technology can be applied on fighter jets so they can get heat-seeking missiles off their tail. Well, we may work on that,” Professor Ma Yungui said.

“I think we have about a 40 percent chance of making the world’s first invisibility cloak,” he said.

“Invisibility cloak is a poorly chosen term,” Thomas Way, associate professor of computing science at Villanova University, told FoxNews.com.

“Invisible to what? We already have stealth aircraft that are invisible to radar (usually), but there is absolutely no way given our current understanding of physics that something could be made invisible to the naked eye.

“If that’s what they are claiming, it’s a hoax.”

This article originally appeared on News.com.au.