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The new battlefield: AI-based warfare in the ‘agentic' age, multi-domain ops and energy as a big constraining factor
Even before China's DeepSeek model triggered a frenzy in the AI (artificial intelligence) world, its People's Liberation Army had started to deploy AI across its major warfighting functions under a somewhat gawky banner called 'intelligentised warfare'. Beijing is learnt to be taking a graded approach by starting with applying AI to improve the performance of battlefield equipment such as artillery systems by cutting the interval needed between each shot while improving accuracy, as well as integrating generative AI with military drones to automatically target opponents' radars with better precision as soon as they come on. The DeepSeek advances could only help China build on its military AI diffusions.
Should that be a cause for worry for India? Yes, say experts, considering that the Chinese are actively aiding Pakistan with its Centre of Artificial Intelligence and Computing of the Pakistan Air Force that was established in 2020, which now has an elaborate Cognitive Electronic Warfare programme aiming to use AI and machine learning for 'effective analytical and tactical decision-making'. During the Operation Sindoor, some of this could have been used by that country, given that it was backed by China behind the scenes, as testified to by Lt General Rahul R Singh, Deputy Chief of Army Staff (Capability Development and Sustenance). Pakistan, he said, was aware of vectors being primed on a real-time basis, which meant it was likely getting live satellite updates from China, with some data crunching likely happening at the backend to enable all of this. Gen Singh's emphasis on the importance of C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance) and the need for civil-military fusion translates into the need for a certain expertise on the virtual domains, including the electromagnetic spectrum, and the domains of space and cyberspace. China is clearly a leader here, and a lot to be done in this area by India to catch up. Lt Gen Amardeep Singh Aujla, the Army's Master General Sustenance, said wars are becoming 'increasingly intense and complex' due to evolving geopolitical dynamics and rapid technological advancements, which are transforming war-fighting practices and the control over new age technologies. This is being read as a recognition of the multi-domain approach being put into practice by China, and implemented in part by Pakistan.
'Modern armed forces must analyse large volumes of data from even more domains —land, air, sea, space and cyberspace—to decode enemy movements and devise deterrence strategies,' according to Alexandr Wang, Founder CEO at Scale AI. The volume of information is all but impossible to handle with current technologies, and the ability to harness data and AI could mean the big difference in the next engagement. And while AI advances are important, there is another limiting factor in all this: energy.
Fields such as Big Data analysis, machine learning, predictive analysis, and natural language processing need a lot of energy, including vast spinning reserves of grid power. The electricity grid needs new electricity sources to support AI technologies and countries are increasingly turning to nuclear sources of energy to supply the electricity used by the huge data centres that drive AI.
'At this point, India is clearly short of nuclear power, with (an installed capacity of) only about seven and a half gigawatts… South Korea, a much smaller country that has around three times India's installed nuclear capacity. So while opening up the sector to private participation is the only way to bring in new technologies into sectors such as nuclear, I think that there is a defence dimension too. Ten years from now, think of the next war… If it were to occur, it will be fought by robots and AI… That means you must have AI; you must have data crunching capability, and the ability to run big data centres… So, the investment in AI data centres and robotics is going to underpin the future defence posture of the country. And for that, the single most important ingredient is enormous amounts of electricity generation. If you don't generate power, all this would not be possible,' Kris P. Singh, the Indian-American promoter and CEO of Holtec International told The Indian Express. Camden, New Jersey-based Holtec, one of the world's largest exporters of capital nuclear components and a frontrunner in the emerging small modular reactor (SMR) space, is in the running to set up proposed SMR-based projects in India.
'Put the SMRs right next to data centers, and then you have defence capabilities right there. And from there, you can, can do missiles, drones, smart soldiers and robots. And you're not too far away, maybe just 10 years. So, I am basically asking that the country become aware that it needs enormous amounts of energy to clean energy to support the future in defense of the country,' Singh said.
India's current energy woes have multiple triggers: a focus on rapid expansion of renewables in the absence of energy storage systems, especially over the last decade, that is now resulting in increasing instability in the country's electricity grid. This issue is compounded by a policy decision from roughly ten years ago to scale down thermal expansion, which provides critical baseload support to the grid during evenings in summer months, when solar generation dips and demand remains high. SMR-based nuclear projects of the kind that Holtec International is proposing are now being viewed in India's policy circles as solutions to scale up baseload capacity, alongside renewed efforts to draw the private sector back into thermal generation.
On the battlefield use of AI, India's defence establishment was notably an early mover, given that the the Defence Research and Development Organisation's (DRDO) Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (CAIR) came up in 1986 with the specific objective of developing autonomous technologies in the domains of combat, path planning, sensors, target identification, underwater mine detection, patrolling, logistics, and localisation etc. 'They are making progress,' a senior government official said about the CAIR project. The problem for India, though, is the combination of China's burgeoning AI prowess and its willingness to help out the PAF with its Centre of Artificial Intelligence and Computing and in possibly meeting that country's energy needs at the backend.
'In the fast-changing landscape of warfare, the first nation to fully incorporate AI into military decision-making will shape the history of the 21st century. Humanity is entering a new era of 'agentic warfare', in which we will see some of the world's strongest armies beaten by rivals that are better at harnessing AI agents—autonomous intelligent systems that can perform a multitude of tasks,' Scale AI's Wang said in a piece dated March 4 that he wrote for The Economist.
The new AI systems, according to Wang, will allow the most technologically advanced armed forces 'to outthink and outmanoeuvre' even very capable opponents by hooking up a military network of sensors, weapons and human decision-makers in a bid to sharply increase the speed at which tactical moves can be proposed, and allow battlefield advantages to be acted upon before humans are even able to survey the situation.
AI is set to rapidly transform the landscape of warfare, with deep tech being deployed for tasks ranging from autonomous weapons systems to intelligence gathering and cybersecurity, according to a research report by Delhi-based Centre for Joint Warfare Studies, an autonomous think tank raised at the initiative of the Ministry of Defence in 2007. This includes the development of autonomous weapons systems that can select and engage targets without human intervention; analysing vast amounts of data to identify potential threats, tracking enemy movements, and forecasting future attacks; and creating realistic battlefield simulations to enable field evaluation trials as well as allowing soldiers to train in virtual environments to prepare for real-world combat scenarios.
AI use in warfare is also spreading rapidly, with reports suggesting that Ukraine has equipped its long-range drones with AI that can autonomously identify terrain and military targets, using them to launch successful attacks against Russian refineries. Israel has also used its 'Lavender' AI system in the conflict in Gaza to identify 37,000 Hamas targets. As a result, the current conflict between Israel and Hamas has been dubbed the first 'AI war', according to Kristian Humble, an Associate Professor of International Law in the School of Law and Criminology at the University of Greenwich, London.
As much as the AI-led battlefield is a now a looming reality, a robust energy back-end is key to powering this future.
Anil Sasi is National Business Editor with the Indian Express and writes on business and finance issues. He has worked with The Hindu Business Line and Business Standard and is an alumnus of Delhi University. ... Read More
