Passive Ambitions, Active Limitations: Defence AI in India

India has been known by its ‘IT hub’ moniker for a while now and has sought to replicate this success in AI as well. However, while India has seen numerous knee-jerk developments and concentrated efforts around AI, it still has a hazy conception of how to establish a well-oiled AI ecosystem. Moreover, while civilian AI is still promoted through a whole-of-government approach, military AI is still comparatively much less prioritized despite India’s uniquely hostile neighbourhood and technologically advanced adversaries. In the last 5 years or so, India has established a few dedicated military AI bodies and unveiled several AI products for defence, either at the level of the tri-services or military R&D centrally – these include LAWS, robots, drones, radars, identification and recognition systems, translators, and monitoring and predictive systems. Despite these strides, the lack of institutionalization, incentivization, funding, upgradation and coordinated activity around military AI poses specific limitations to how efficiently India’s military AI ambitions are being realized. These restrictions are interestingly juxtaposed against India’s current focus on the indigenization of its defence technology production as it partners more vociferously with a diverse set of allies. If it intends to constructively work towards the grand ambitions it must become a military AI power, India needs to ensure that it looks at AI as the highly diversified technology it is, instead of the siloed approach it has adopted with respect to AI development, deployment and governance so far.