The “silent sentry” is a 3D-printed grey-coloured robotic with one giant eye that slides on a rail. The robotic, which may be managed remotely or features autonomously inside set parameters, makes use of synthetic intelligence (AI) for surveillance similar to human detection and facial recognition. Developed by the Indian Military, the robotic may be put in on fences alongside the nation’s border with Pakistan.
Final 12 months, a video confirmed a “patrolling robotic” on a mountain in China, watching India from throughout the Line of Precise Management (LAC), the de facto border; in one other video, humanoid robots had been seen at China’s border crossing with Vietnam. The authenticity of the movies on social media is unclear however each emphasise how nationwide borders are being secured by means of the use of AI, the expertise behind programming machines to carry out human duties.
China has been pushing its army to undertake AI for nearly a decade. The United States (US) has made full AI integration earlier than 2030 part of its army technique.
The place is India, which is able to host a global AI summit this month?
India’s armed forces are adopting AI, interviews recommend, however analysts urge advancing it. Or else, they are saying, the
already important technological gaps with the US and China will widen.
Globally, AI was formally born throughout a US college convention in the Nineteen Fifties. However a big language mannequin (LLM) was created solely in 2020. Industrial AI took off with ChatGPT two years later.
The significance of AI in defence is ready to develop, Indian Military chief Common Upendra Dwivedi mentioned at an annual information convention in January. To boost multidomain fight readiness, the Military is present process adjustments, together with transferring in the direction of an aviation brigade and a rocket-missile unit.
The Military’s modernisation priorities with AI are “knitting” its legacy gear, enhancing the mobility and safety of troops and bodily belongings, strengthening community operations, knowledge centricity and area and satellite tv for pc communication, and buying extra new-generation techniques, together with unmanned aerial autos (UAVs) and counter-UAV expertise. To modernise logistics, robots and mule drones have been inducted in giant numbers, however that’s not sufficient, Dwivedi mentioned.
“Transferring forward, we’d like AI virtually in all places, be it drive visualisation or utility or preservation.”
India’s armed forces are thought to have used AI’s predictive evaluation of adversary behaviour and goal identification throughout the four-day India-Pakistan battle final 12 months, when India struck a number of places in Pakistan with clear precision.
“It can be crucial for our kill chain, that from the sensor to the shooter, the connection is secure and well timed. We’ve used this kill chain and since it was efficient, we had been capable of deal with the goal in the proper place,” Dwivedi mentioned.
The time period “kill chain” is a army idea of assault. His remarks come amid a surge in the deployment of drones and different aerial gadgets globally, in the contested air littoral, the low-altitude area between the Earth’s floor and a top of 10,000 ft, above which most piloted plane fly.
In India, the overwhelming majority of that area is stuffed with military belongings, Dwivedi mentioned, including that software program for “the administration system of our flying gear” shall be created. In the future, the Military, the Indian Navy and the Indian Air Power (IAF) will be capable to connect with the similar techniques, which is why AI integration is important.
Whereas India gained the army battle in Might, media reviews mentioned Indian fighter jets had been hit by Pakistan (and India hit Pakistan’s fighter jets). The IAF has not confirmed or denied that its jets had been hit (solely that “losses are a part of struggle”) however mentioned all IAF pilots had returned safely.
The arduous lesson from Operation Sindoor is that superior jets and missiles want wrap-around applied sciences, particularly throughout greater conflicts, army analyst Lieutenant Common Raj Shukla (retired) mentioned.
“A Rafale (fighter jet) with ‘fancy missiles’ is ineffective when you don’t have cyber (functionality) to degrade the adversary’s command and management, or when you don’t have area to focus on it.”
He cited Ukraine, which doesn’t have a standard air drive or navy however has been capable of deploy AI to maintain an asymmetrical struggle towards Russia, a conventional army energy, for 4 years. Ukraine’s Soviet-era defence-industrial base apart, the nation had American expertise entrepreneur Alex Karp construct an AI-enabled software-driven command-and-control system.
“That has introduced down decision-making time to nanoseconds and the kill chains have been compressed to minutes. They’ve developed these deadly frontiers the place tanks, infantry, any motion is picked up and neutralised in 5-to-6 minutes, on a frontage of, say, 600-700 kilometres (km),” Shukla mentioned.
If India replicates that strategy alongside its border with Pakistan and China, he mentioned, “see what it would do”.
Karp was on Time journal’s record of the world’s 100 most influential folks in 2025.
India wants prime expertise expertise, giant language fashions and coaching, knowledge centres, computing energy and power provides to develop into AI-rich in defence, Shukla mentioned.
Ongoing work to publicly launch India’s first nationwide safety technique may provide extra readability and set expectations in the long term for an AI technique for defence, Antoine Levesques, senior fellow, Worldwide Institute for Strategic Research, a London-based think-tank, wrote in 2024.
Thus far, although, no such technique doc is publicly accessible.
An AI-based language translator (Graphic: Ajaya Mohanty)
Utility layer
India’s Defence Analysis and Improvement Organisation had made greater than 75 AI merchandise, starting from autonomous robots and cyber defence to AI-based surveillance techniques, by 2022. The authorities had then mentioned ₹100 crore ($12 million) every could be given to the three companies yearly for AI help (some extra funds have been introduced since). China, in contrast, is estimated to spend at the least $2-3 billion on army AI yearly, and the US some $13 billion (figures differ).
Lieutenant Common Harsh Chhibber, director-general, info techniques, Indian Military, mentioned in an interview with the Blueprint on January 23 that the Military’s present AI integration focuses on knowledge digitisation, AI-enabled determination help, analytics and employees augmentation. AI is being employed to boost situational consciousness, cut back (human) cognitive stress, and enhance the pace and high quality of decision-making underneath full human management.
“A structured effort in ‘the (Military’s) 12 months of networking and knowledge centricity’ is underneath approach to digitise brigades and better formations by changing legacy, siloed and paper-based knowledge into structured digital repositories. This consists of operational, logistics, personnel, gear and administrative knowledge. This digitisation varieties the foundational layer for significant AI utility and data-driven command and management.”
Amongst merchandise, the Military has Ekam AI, an AI-as-a-service platform, to tie its use throughout operational and administrative domains, working as a “spine” for functions similar to AI chat, document-related work and specialised army bots. It focuses on automating routine employees perform, enhancing consistency and accuracy of outputs, and enabling quicker entry to authorised info, whereas making certain knowledge sovereignty and compliance with the Military’s safe networks. One other is Sama Drishti, an AI-enabled software that assists formation commanders and the rank in understanding real-time operational situations.
“It permits authorised customers to work together with operational and intelligence knowledge utilizing pure language, akin to participating with a digital employees officer. The system interprets ‘commander intent’, securely retrieves solely role- and responsibility-specific knowledge, and synthesises it into clear, operationally related insights, together with narrative assessments and GIS (geographic info system)-based outputs,” Chhibber mentioned.
GIS helps the army analyse spatial knowledge similar to of terrains and from satellite tv for pc imagery.
Deliberate AI functions and platforms embody: Ekam LLM, the first sovereign language-learning mannequin in Indian defence, which is being developed; and agentic AI, an autonomous system that may meet advanced targets with minimal human intervention. As well as, some 100 ‘AI brokers’ shall be hosted on air-gapped (remoted) army-captive knowledge networks. The Military would possibly use AI for impartial tactical or deadly decision-making later.
“The Military continues to function underneath human-in-the-loop and human-on-the-loop rules, making certain that command authority and accountability stay firmly with human commanders. Totally autonomous fight roles and delayering of decision-making is in progress,” he mentioned.
Human in the loop is when folks enhance the effectivity of a machine by means of energetic participation and human on the loop is folks offering suggestions to a machine to enhance its efficiency.
Massive-scale predictive AI functions similar to forecasting operational outcomes, logistics demand, gear well being or personnel tendencies are nonetheless in the growth stage in the Military. Such capabilities rely on sustained availability of information, consistency and integration throughout formations and techniques. Integrating current weapons platforms and fight techniques with AI-driven features can also be “in course of”.
“The integration of AI into weapons, significantly for focusing on, engagement-support or fire-control requires intensive validation, excessive reliability underneath fight situations and alignment with established doctrines. Consequently, such functions are being pursued cautiously and incrementally,” Chhibber mentioned.
“The general adoption of AI stays primarily at the utility layer, with a number of vital areas nonetheless underneath growth or analysis.”
A picture-and-video repository has been created for AI fashions with greater than 200,000 photos of military gear. Shakti, one other knowledge venture, when absolutely developed, shall be a land vector command-control and communication system (digital battlefield administration platform) that’s “pivotal for sensor-shooter integration”. Information safety is weak. The Military is engaged on sustaining knowledge integrity to make sure it stays constant over time, “no matter inner or exterior influences”. Customers of the organisation’s knowledge belongings will depend on the similar info for decision-making and evaluation.
The Military is creating functions “with inherent safety consideration” in thoughts. It has additionally arrange greater than 100 “auto climate stations” alongside the nation’s northern borders that present warning of pure disasters inside 100 kilometres of the worldwide border (with Pakistan) and the LAC. Doppler radars are being put in for long-range climate detection.
A “cover inspector” for fighter jets that may detect defects based mostly on AI inputs (Photograph: Ministry of Defence)
The OODA loop
The IAF doesn’t share details about the use of AI in operations. In keeping with a supply, its air-gapped community and predictive evaluation had been used successfully throughout Operation Sindoor. By many accounts, the IAF has been at the forefront of AI adoption amongst the three companies (a world development) — additionally as a result of it has technology-heavy gear.
The IAF is refining its language-learning fashions, and makes use of AI in blockchain, digitisation, encryption, knowledge certification, software program techniques and medical work, in addition to to enhance provide chains, together with throughout conflicts, and to seek out various options. The supply mentioned AI shortens the OODA loop, brief for “observe, orient, determine, act” — the army decision-making mannequin proposed by a US Air Power officer in the Seventies.
An IAF supply with direct data of AI adoption, mentioned, “Nationwide safety choices can’t be left to machines, which is why we’ve got the human-AI teaming strategy, particularly for operations.”
The AI-integration framework has been constructed upon many years of modernisation in the IAF. The foundational steps had been taken over 2018-22, with the major goal of analysing and utilising an enormous quantity of information collected.
As India shifted its defence coverage to self-reliance, the must create an ‘informatised system’ grew to become clear. The IAF’s AI cell was arrange in 2019. To fulfill real-world operational challenges and to maintain up with technological adjustments, Udaan or the Unit for
Digitisation, Automation, AI and Networking, was fashioned in 2021 (and the IAF’s AI Centre of Excellence in 2022). Udaan (“flight” in Hindi), the place solely IAF engineers work, specialises in computing, massive knowledge evaluation and creating functions. The duties embody absorbing operational knowledge throughout functions and automation integration.
“We’ve an AI suite and the pure language-processing functionality (end-to-end),” the supply mentioned. “By way of doc evaluation, we’re not AI to simply summarise however for speech synopsis, say, when operational knowledge is generated. All the knowledge is transcribed and transformed to textual content.”
An AI-enabled, rail-mounted robotic (Pictures: Ministry of Defence; Graphic: Ajaya Mohanty)
Different AI use consists of predictive upkeep of kit (together with radars and aeroengines), based mostly on an evaluation of historic knowledge, or AI-enabled prior data of repairs and repair life; personnel administration (who’s the proper match for what job and the place); and logistics (the place spares are situated and the quickest approach to get them).
A significant problem is that the IAF has a mixture of previous (some greater than 30 years) and new platforms and techniques, which in flip means heterogenous knowledge. For AI to perform optimally, it has to make the appropriate knowledge distinction. All datasets should meet the metadata customary. Plus, data-use requires creating standardised tips and frameworks that work inside the air-gapped community. The IAF plans to amass {hardware} and combine it with the software program developed internally for brand spanking new AI functions later this 12 months.
The visible upkeep of plane is completed by drones. Conversational AI is used to check air accidents, together with these attributable to chook hits.
Wing Commander Prateek Thapar (retired), who was the first officer in the IAF’s AI cell, mentioned AI-enabled picture intelligence is essential for precision strikes by missiles.
Intelligence evaluation in basic is an enormous a part of AI exercise.
“A plethora of knowledge comes in every single day, gleaning and linking the knowledge that shall be wanted for operations later. It’s vital to do this in peacetime,” Thapar mentioned.
AI improves situational consciousness, however the determination to have interaction or to not have interaction is taken by people, he mentioned, including that India will want an AI command at the degree of battle centres.
In 2005, the IAF’s inner community was established. Operations and the monitoring of operations had been digitised after that. By 2025, AI had touched all features of the organisation, from the integration of weapons to operations, coaching, wargaming, upkeep, logistics, supplies and the auxiliary system.
The Navy is integrating AI and machine studying throughout important mission areas to boost operational effectiveness and to keep up maritime superiority, based on an Indian Navy assertion to the Blueprint. The Navy has some 50 AI initiatives, overlaying language translation, goal identification from imagery, sensor enhancement, stock administration, perimeter safety, and maritime area consciousness. Future AI work will embody LLM-based functions, offline language translators, autonomous vessels, sensible ship applied sciences, and unifying enterprise knowledge.
“These initiatives goal to ship tactical and strategic impacts by accelerating the OODA loop and enabling smarter units for actionable intelligence from various knowledge sources like imagery, equipment, and weapon techniques.”
Strategic impact-and-autonomy integration is reshaping naval doctrines elsewhere. The Indian Navy is exploring autonomous techniques to take away people from data-gathering and basic-decision loops, together with giant displacement underwater autos for undetected operations.
Developments in AI-driven weapons in superior nations that analyse and have interaction targets autonomously are prompting doctrinal shifts in the Indian Navy, specializing in core parts like annotated datasets and knowledge science, the assertion mentioned.
Sarvatra Pehchaan, an AI-enabled system with indigenous software program, to detect border breach (Photograph: Ministry of Defence)
AI warfare
Gregory M Reichberg, professor, Peace Analysis Institute Oslo, a think-tank, who has written on AI in Indian defence, mentioned India has labored quite a bit on swarm warfare (creating functions). However it might be farther on AI, given the nation’s software program abilities.
India is taken into account a prime AI energy, with the US and China main the world race.
There may be an overreliance worldwide on autonomous weapons techniques, to establish and have interaction targets, which can be extra vital for India, going forward, Reichberg mentioned. However AI, which is helpful for battlefield coordination, mustn’t substitute command decision-making, solely help it.
He mentioned an space India may have a look at is AI utility consciousness and interfacing, particularly to maneuver army belongings successfully after finding the adversary’s place.
In his nation, Norway, a inhabitants of about 5.65 million protects a landmass of about 385,207 sq. km, the place the terrain is inhospitable in many components. There, AI can present inputs on which army belongings are best suited to fend off an adversary throughout domains, he mentioned.
“There are exaggerated claims that AI could make choices, however on tactical and strategic ranges people have to be concerned, in order that pitfalls are prevented.”
The Indian army might want to contemplate the growth of adversarial AI in another nations. Adversarial AI is that which manipulates machine knowledge to set off incorrect choices.
Machine-learning vulnerability is one other concern in AI use. Though army techniques are safe as a result of they don’t use open channels, even army communication hyperlinks may be hacked into. “Except there’s a breakthrough in quantum (unbreakable codes are created), data-poisoning can occur inside the mannequin of language-learning itself,” Reichberg mentioned.
A mantra of army data-use is “harvest right this moment, decrypt tomorrow”.
In 2023, a particular workforce was fashioned in the IAF to check the altering quantum computing panorama. Submit-quantum cryptography is being labored on to guard knowledge. The Indian army institution additionally maintains a excessive customary of clearing algorithms. However each funds for expertise and coverage focus are wanted.
A framework on integrating quantum applied sciences — communication, computing, sensing and metrology, and supplies and units — in the Indian army was introduced on January 22.
“Whereas we’re imbibing AI into the companies, we have to go miles forward,” Thapar mentioned.
The Indian army has to maneuver past the use of AI for information-gathering, evaluation or the simulation of operations and functions to innovation, analysts interviewed mentioned.
“By way of valour and different fight matrix, ours is a really skilled army. It’s ironic that we’re not lacing it with expertise, in the tempo and scale wanted,” Shukla mentioned. “Fight-AI, not (solely) logistics.”
There’s a craze for swarm drones in the world however they’re low-to-medium weapons, Thapar mentioned, including that India ought to develop the stock of AI in its arsenal with superior implements. “Autonomous weapons may be the first line of defence. We want predictive evaluation (air, naval and land), and a separate cyber command.”
India has a accountable place on deadly autonomous weapon techniques (LAWS), Thapar mentioned, “however the adversary may deploy AI indiscriminately”, significantly as a result of worldwide regulation remains to be skinny.
Whereas the United Nations Common Meeting adopted a decision on LAWS in December 2023, the conclusion of a legally binding instrument, prohibiting techniques that can not be used in compliance with worldwide humanitarian legislation, is pending.
Reichberg mentioned Israel made “indiscriminate use of AI” in Gaza (2023-25), not simply with the focusing on of places but additionally the frequency and the unfold of bombings.
China’s “overinvolvement” with AI in its armed forces is a priority, Thapar mentioned. “The Indian authorities wants to consider army AI.”
In a 2025 report back to the US Congress on “army and safety developments” in China, the US Division of Protection mentioned, “China believes the subsequent revolution in army affairs will happen when militaries transition to ‘intelligentized’ warfare and absolutely combine AI, massive knowledge, superior computing, and different applied sciences into the joint drive.”
The Individuals’s Liberation Military (PLA) remains to be creating the army concept, doctrine, and operational ideas for this warfare and it continued experimenting with totally different AI-enabled capabilities and ideas all through 2024, it added.
China’s AI trajectory can stress India right into a defence-heavy posture. However India can strengthen deterrence with out sacrificing progress (financial) and even place itself as “the world’s strongest dual-use AI democracy”, Thapar mentioned.
AI itself is remodeling, “there’s nothing futuristic about it”, Shukla mentioned, including {that a} missile coming in at Mach 7 or Mach 8 (seven-eight instances the pace of sound), can’t be intercepted at “the fee of human judgment”.
Income and capital figures in the defence price range don’t point out fight functionality, he mentioned: “How a lot are we spending on AI?”
India ought to work not simply on AI, however edge-computing, robotics, 3D printing, and different new applied sciences which are all being woven into army capacities. The PLA arrange its strategic help drive in 2015 for AI-enablement of sensors and shooters throughout army domains, he mentioned.
“Our energy differential with China is $450 billion 12 months on 12 months. With technological innovation and civil-military fusion, we are able to deter China asymmetrically”, he mentioned.
Whereas indications are that technologically, China is doing very effectively, all army capabilities must be combat-proven. “There’s a restrict to profitable with out preventing.”
On the different hand, US President Donald Trump’s proposed Golden Dome (air defence system towards ballistic and hypersonic missiles) is predicted to see a spending of $175 billion over the span of three years. The US is worried about the PLA’s rocket drive. India ought to be rather more involved, Shukla mentioned.
India’s army curriculum should scale up. However the bigger concern is the supply of AI to fleets and formations. The period of software-enabled warfare is right here, and AI is reinforcing it.
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