Google formally renounced its pledge in February 2024 to refrain from creating AI for military use. The move may enable the United States to expedite its AI weapons programs, as the change indicates that commercial corporations now view this technology as inevitable for military purposes. However, China is outperforming the United States in many ways in the global weapons competition between the two countries over artificial intelligence dominance in combat. It is unknown if America can create such programs at the same rate as China.
China’s response to U.S. tariffs escalated on March 5, when the Chinese Embassy in the U.S. wrote on X that the country is ready to battle America in “any other type of war” and that “we’re ready to fight till the end.” That wording points to a more expansive understanding of warfare that goes beyond traditional combat.
China has been investing in AI weapons systems for years, according to a 2020 Brookings Institution paper. Analysts were still making assumptions at the time on the nation’s intentions. Then, in June 2024, National Security News revealed that China might develop completely autonomous AI weapons in the battlefield in as little as two years.
AI-powered combat systems have been tested recently by both China and the US. The U.S. Army sent an armed “robot dog” to the Middle East for testing, according to a Military.com article from October 2024. One significant advancement was the Quadrupedal-Unmanned Ground Vehicle (Q-UGV), which was created with AI-powered targeting. However, months previously, China had shown off that same equipment during their Golden Dragon joint military exercises in Cambodia.
Although there hasn’t been much testing on the battlefield, America is also manufacturing other autonomous machine guns. For instance, the “Bullfrog,” a sizable autonomous machine gun platform created by defense technology company Allen Control Systems, employs artificial intelligence (AI) to shoot down drones.
However, the confrontation between the world’s superpowers utilizing AI-enabled tactics has been intensifying for some time. AI will soon be a major factor in battlefield decision-making, according to a 2019 report by the USMA at West Point, whose Director of Research and Strategy, Gordon Cooke, Ph.D., cautioned that “the ability to integrate AI into weapons systems could fundamentally change the balance of power.”
This is due to the fact that, although autonomous weaponry such as robotic sentries and drones with artificial intelligence (AI) are the most obvious examples of AI-driven combat, they are merely a component of a broader plan.
According to a 2023 research by the Center for a New American Security (CNAS), China’s military views artificial intelligence (AI) as a means of processing, analyzing, and exploiting information more quickly than human decision-makers. In the report, CNAS Senior Fellow Jacob Stokes stated, “China sees AI playing a central role in advancing its military power.” “Identifying and targeting U.S. vulnerabilities in the dynamic environment of a real conflict will require sensing, relaying, and processing vast amounts of information at a speed that only computers can match.” This implies that the employment of AI in combat involves more than simply determining who has the greatest autonomous weapons; it also involves determining who can utilize AI to make judgments more quickly than their opponent.
Another AI military power and China’s partner, Russia, seems to be taking a different tack. Instead of concentrating on AI-powered combat weaponry, Russia’s AI military policy aims to disable an adversary’s command-and-control systems, according to a 2021 Chatham House research. These interconnected computer networks are often highly encrypted, but they could be interfered with using artificial intelligence code-breaking to render military hardware inoperable or unusable.
Although China and Russia are strengthening their partnership, the US does not yet seem to have many military alliances based on AI.
The United States continues to dominate the world in AI research. However, its approach to military AI has been hampered by the slow-moving pace of commercial defense contracts and a Wall Street mindset of profit-driven decision-making. One of the few branches actively promoting AI integration is the U.S. Air Force. According to a 2024 article in Airman Magazine, the Air Force is developing a cognitive engine driven by artificial intelligence that will expedite decision-making in combat situations as part of its “Air Force’s Artificial Intelligence and the Future of the United States Air Force” effort. The report claims that the application of machine learning models “could anticipate threats and inform decision-making processes with unprecedented precision.”
The United States depends on collaborations with private companies like Google, OpenAI, and Palantir, in contrast to China, which can quickly and unhinderedly incorporate AI military advancements into its state-run defense sector. Before accepting military contracts, American businesses must consider matters of public relations and finances. Hardware producers of defense equipment are not the majority of American big-tech companies that the federal government depends on for AI integration. But China, Russia, and other American enemies can develop new technology more quickly and then deploy them on the battlefield, which could lead to moral issues during wartime.
Unexpected results have already been observed in the future of autonomous weapons systems. The Turkish-made Kargu-2 quadcopter, for instance, murdered a person in Libya in March 2020 without any assistance from a human operator. The incident happened during a battle between forces from the Libyan government and the Libyan National Army, a rebellious military group. It rekindled long-standing worries about how much human control AI-powered weapons should have in the US and other nations. The death may have been the first in combat history, as an attack drone that was intended to give ground forces tactical intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance capabilities attacked without any visible human intervention.
In the meanwhile, nations with significant military might are still developing self-contained combat weaponry. If AI is the foundation of future warfare, then the world must act cautiously.
AI warfare is sneakier than conventional combat; it’s hard to describe and more harder to spot. China appears to be cognizant that modern conflicts will not always be fought on a traditional battlefield, as evidenced by its comment about “any other type of war.”
Do not be misled, however; the first AI battle has already begun. The competition isn’t limited to developing better automated weaponry or drones. Information, judgment, and combat intelligence are all key components of this conflict. AI will alter how wars are won as well as how we fight them.
