Intelligent National Defense Amid Strategic Ambiguity? Defense AI in Taiwan

Taiwan's defense AI approach is hindered by a historical legacy of authoritarianism, resulting in a disconnect between the civilian government and the defense establishment. This same disconnect also impedes Taiwan's strategic alignment to address the Chinese threat in a unified manner agreed upon by Taiwan's political leadership and its primary security ally, the United States. Additionally, this disconnect prevents effective collaboration between the defense establishment and Taiwan's vibrant civilian technology innovation sector to effectively develop defense AI. Current defense AI programs are fragmented and lack focus, often prioritizing emulation over innovation. For example, attempts by the Taiwan Air Force to integrate AI into future operational concepts have been ambitious technically but conceptually disjointed. In addition to a main focus on AI for close quarters air combat, Taiwan also has projects for support tasks, to advance predictive maintenance, for IT network management, and to assist space-based assets. Currently fielded AI applications are much more limited in scope, including medical training devices and predictive maintenance. However, Taiwan has also been consistently spending a higher-than average portion of its GDP on the civilian side of technology innovation and received stellar results in AI development and application. In summary, there is no shortage of grassroots ideas within and outside Taiwan's defense establishment for defense technology innovation. If Taiwan can better channel grassroots talent and solutions into a more open defense innovation ecosystem, it could significantly benefit from the adoption of defense AI in confronting the threat posed by China.