Outpaced by the US, China’s military places selective bets on artificial intelligence

NEW TAIPEI CITY, Taiwan — The Chinese navy is enhancing its guided-missile frigate, the Qinzhou, with an artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm designed to illuminate blind spots during air defense engagements, an official military website said.

The website cited a state-run media report and experts calling the vessel a “major leap in integrated combat capability” that “positions the vessel among the most advanced frigates in service today”.

A slew of announcements such as that one from March 30 shows AI expanding across a military that aims to “intelligentize” as it prepares for potential conflicts in the South China Sea and Taiwan Strait. But analysts say China is picking its AI battles carefully rather than expecting quick domination of the technology or short-term parity with the United States.

China is taking a “cautious official posture” toward AI in the armed forces, said Sophie Wushuang Yi, postdoctoral teaching fellow with Schwarzman College at Tsinghua University.

“China’s concept of intelligentized warfare has been embedded in official defense white papers since 2019,” Yi said. “But the open-source academic literature is frank that China cannot currently close the overall gap with the United States in military AI capability.”

Still, AI is becoming a force within the forces.

An institution under the People’s Liberation Army in January used AI to test drone swarms and, according to a test run shown on Chinese state television, one soldier supervised some 200 of the autonomous vehicles at the same time.

AI is taking on a greater role as well in the military’s use of space and cyberspace, said Malcolm Davis, a senior analyst for defense strategy and national security with the Australian Strategic Policy Institute. In space, he said, it can manage “complex orbital operations,” while in cyberspace it can plan and conduct operations against critical information infrastructure.

The military’s ability to use AI at machine speed would potentially let it exploit a faster “observe-orient-decide-act” loop compared to purely human-controlled systems, Davis said.

“That’s something that’s being demonstrated by the U.S. and Israel now in operational planning in the Iran war, where AI is playing a key role in identifying targets and planning mission packages,” the Canberra-based analyst said. “There’s no reason that the PLA won’t learn from that and utilize a similar capability.”

A testament to AI’s reach throughout the military, a March 26 PLA Daily report notes its use in battlefield perception, intelligent decision support and autonomous control systems.

PLA leaders particularly value AI decision-making because most of their people lack battlefield experience, unlike American counterparts, said Sam Bresnick, a research fellow with the Center for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown University.

He said its priorities include layering AI on top of computer networks, gathering volumes of data and the autonomy of unmanned systems such as uncrewed underwater vehicles.

Chinese officials want to surpass the U.S. in military AI use, Bresnick noted, but the government today fears information that AI could use or generate. “The data could go against Xi Jinping and Communist Party ideals,” he said. “They don’t want to lose control over it.”

The U.S. armed forces now have a “commanding” AI lead over China, the Modern War Institute at West Point said in a March 17 study.

It says the United States has more than 4,000 data centers versus some 400 in China. Four-year-old U.S. export controls on advanced semiconductors shipped to China limit Beijing’s access to AI-related hardware, the study adds.

“China’s publicly stated position is considerably more cautious and more hedged than is commonly assumed in Western coverage,” Yi said.

“The PLA lacks the volume of real operational data that the U.S. military has accumulated over decades of expeditionary warfare, and there are unresolved doctrinal tensions between the decentralized decision-making that effective AI-enabled operations require and the PLA’s deeply embedded centralized command culture,” said Yi of the Schwarzman College.

China may have surpassed the United States in AI for drone swarms, however, said Chen Yi-fan, assistant professor in the Diplomacy and International Relations Department at Tamkang University in Taiwan.

“With the addition of drone carriers already in service, the PLA has taken the lead over the U.S. military in this category of AI military applications,” he said.

The Qinzhou frigate was commissioned last year and did a combat drill in the South China Sea, where Beijing disputes maritime sovereignty with five other governments.

台湾新台北市——官方军事网站称，中国海军正在为其导弹护卫舰钦州号配备人工智能（AI）算法，旨在消除防空作战中的盲区。

该网站援引官方媒体报道和专家的话称，该舰是“综合作战能力的一次重大飞跃”，使该舰“跻身当今服役的最先进的护卫舰之列”。

3月30日发布的一系列公告表明，人工智能正在中国军队中得到广泛应用，旨在提升军队的“智能化”，以应对南海和台湾海峡可能发生的冲突。但分析人士指出，中国在人工智能领域的应用策略十分谨慎，并不指望迅速掌握这项技术或在短期内与美国达到势均力敌的水平。

清华大学苏世民书院博士后研究员易武双表示，中国对军队中的人工智能采取了“谨慎的官方立场”。

“中国的智能化战争理念自2019年以来就已写入官方国防白皮书，”易说。“但公开的学术文献坦言，中国目前在军事人工智能能力方面还无法完全缩小与美国的差距。”

然而，人工智能正在成为一股强大的力量。

今年1月，中国人民解放军下属的一个机构利用人工智能技术测试了无人机群。据中国国家电视台播出的测试画面显示，一名士兵同时指挥了约200架无人机。

澳大利亚战略政策研究所国防战略与国家安全高级分析师马尔科姆·戴维斯表示，人工智能在军事领域对太空和网络空间的运用中也扮演着越来越重要的角色。他指出，在太空领域，人工智能可以管理“复杂的轨道行动”；而在网络空间，人工智能可以规划和实施针对关键信息基础设施的攻击行动。

戴维斯表示，军方利用人工智能以机器速度进行行动的能力，可能会使其能够利用比纯粹由人类控制的系统更快的“观察-判断-决策-行动”循环。

这位堪培拉的分析人士表示：“美国和以色列目前正在伊朗战争的作战计划中展示这一点，人工智能在识别目标和规划任务方案方面发挥着关键作用。解放军没有理由不从中学习并利用类似的能力。”

3月26日《解放军报》的一篇报道证明了人工智能在军队中的应用范围之广，该报道指出人工智能已被用于战场感知、智能决策支持和自主控制系统。

乔治城大学安全与新兴技术中心的研究员萨姆·布雷斯尼克表示，解放军领导人特别重视人工智能决策，因为他们的大多数士兵缺乏战场经验，这与美国同行不同。

他表示，其优先事项包括将人工智能叠加到计算机网络之上、收集大量数据以及实现无人系统（如无人水下航行器）的自主性。

布雷斯尼克指出，中国官员希望在军事人工智能应用方面超越美国，但中国政府目前担心人工智能可能利用或生成的信息。“这些数据可能与习近平和共产党的理念相悖，”他说，“他们不想失去对人工智能的控制。”

西点军校现代战争研究所3月17日发布的一份研究报告称，美国武装部队目前在人工智能领域对中国拥有“绝对”领先优势。

报告指出，美国拥有超过4000个数据中心，而中国只有约400个。报告还补充说，美国对中国出口先进半导体实施的四年前的出口管制限制了北京获取人工智能相关硬件的途径。

易先生表示：“中国公开表态的立场比西方媒体通常认为的要谨慎得多，也更加模棱两可。”

“解放军缺乏美军在数十年的远征战争中积累的大量真实作战数据，而且有效的AI赋能作战所需的去中心化决策与解放军根深蒂固的集中指挥文化之间存在着尚未解决的理论矛盾，”苏世民大学易教授说。

台湾淡江大学外交与国际关系系助理教授陈义凡表示，中国在无人机集群人工智能领域可能已经超越了美国。

他说：“随着无人机载机的服役，解放军在人工智能军事应用领域已经领先于美国军方。”

钦州号护卫舰于去年服役，并在南海进行了实战演习。北京与南海其他五个国家政府存在海洋主权争议。