Codenamed as Babur, its development came as a surprise to the U.S. intelligence in 2005 as they had not expected the Pakistan being able to produce such a capable system, according to United States–based CSIS.

[10][11][12][13][14] According to Pakistani military, SLCM-variant of Babur has provided Pakistan a long-sought "credible sea-based second-strike capability, augmenting existing deterrence.

[17] At that time, India was on pursuit of establishing a missile defense program, that included the acquisition of S-300 Grumble from Russia and Patriot PAC-3 from the United States, had adversely affected its deterrence mechanism.

: 388 [18] The development on cruise missile was codenamed after Zahir-ud-Din Babur– the first Mughal Emperor of India– and delegated this program to civilian contractor, the National Defence Complex.

It is now documented that the Babur's cruise missile technology comes from the U.S. Tomahawk when Pakistani intelligence successfully retrieve the unknown number of Tomahawks from Afghanistan when these system malfunctioned during their mission in Afghanistan in 1998.: 248 [18][13] Pakistan's engineering feat on successfully developing and deploying of Babur quickly attracted the speculation regarding its origins and development.

: 248 [18] In 2005, Pakistan's test of Babur surprised the United States as they had not expected that the country could produce such weapon system.

[1] The U.S.-based analysts leveled serious allegations on China of helping Pakistan when they pointed out the similarities of the missile with Chinese and American designs, namely the DH-10 and Tomahawk.

[21] The Babur's airframe is made up of a tubular fuselage, with a pair of folded wings attached to the middle section and the empennage at the rear along with the propulsion system.

Launched from ground-based mobile transporter erector launchers (TELs), the Babur can be armed with both conventional and nuclear warheads and has a reported range of 750 km (470 mi).

Future software and hardware updates could include the European Union's GALILEO and China's BeiDou Navigation Satellite System.

[35] On 6 June 2012, Pakistan conducted a successful test-fire of the multi-tube, indigenously developed cruise missile Hatf-VII (Babur), which can carry both nuclear and conventional warheads with stealth capabilities.

[16] On 29 March 2018, Pakistan Navy conducted another successful tested for validation and assurances, which negated India's claim of bluff.