‘Overtaking on the Curve’? Defense AI in China

China has a clear focus on AI’s importance to the future military balance, and a well-developed and resourced system for developing relevant technologies. Yet by the judgment of seemingly most Chinese and many foreign analysts, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) remains far from implementing revolutionary uses of defense AI and is still grappling with institutional reforms and the demands of joint operations. But Chinese thinkers are working through the possibilities for AI to provide both symmetric and asymmetric tools for high-end conflict. China is already applying AI for military logistics optimization, training simulation and wargaming and weapons development. AI’s utility for data processing, decision support and enhanced command and control (C2) provides a path to the information dominance prized by Chinese military theory. Beyond current frameworks for kinetic and cyber operations, Chinese theorists are exploring new applications for AI such as intelligent systems and cognitive warfare. The Chinese Communist Party follows a materialist conception of human development and wields authority over all social institutions in China, including the PLA. Official judgments about AI’s structural importance, and of the need for China to be equipped for long-term strategic competition with the US, are thus unlikely to change. China is leveraging its dynamic civilian economy to boost defense AI development, within the larger context of a national drive for the commanding heights of AI and other emerging technologies. Whether methods that have worked as part of an integrated global economy can still deliver results under growing “decoupling” pressures from the US remains to be seen. The US in late 2022 introduced export controls targeting China’s access to advanced semiconductors, which were expressly justified by the imperative to constrain Chinese advances in defense AI. But China’s internal means for AI development are now sufficiently robust that analysts of military and strategic global affairs will find it imperative to watch this space, even as it becomes increasingly opaque.