Sam Bresnick
China is betting big on military artificial intelligence. Chinese leader Xi Jinping has made the technology a strategic priority, and the People’s Liberation Army is pouring resources into the development of state-of-the-art AI-enabled military capabilities. Chinese defense experts believe that these technologies will offer the PLA the best chance to equal, or surpass, the warfighting capacity of the U.S. armed forces.
Beijing’s plans and actions have unsettled many observers in Washington, some of whom worry that China is catching up to the United States, or even leaping ahead. There is evidence, however, that China still faces significant obstacles that may slow its implementation of military AI. These challenges include the PLA’s lack of militarily relevant training data, difficulties associated with testing and evaluating AI systems, and stringent U.S. export controls on the semiconductors that power the most advanced AI models.
But even if China figures out how to overcome these technical roadblocks, it will still face several organizational and political hurdles that could keep it from taking full advantage of AI-enabled military technologies in tomorrow’s conflicts. There is, for instance, a looming tension between relying on AI to guide battlefield operations and decision-making, on the one hand, and the PLA’s highly hierarchical, centralized bureaucratic processes, on the other. Xi’s ongoing consolidation of power might also limit the effective application of AI-enabled tools. Although Beijing clearly hopes that AI will allow its soldiers to automate their way around thorny political choices in future wars, it is unlikely that the technology, even if exquisitely developed, will fully ameliorate the Chinese military’s decision-making difficulties.
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