China Is Using the Private Sector to Advance Military AI

In a study published in January last year, researchers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University showed how artificial intelligence could be used to deploy weapons systems in automated "kill webs" that would adjust in real time to battlefield changes during combat at sea.

- Josh Chin

Six days later, China's military announced that the university had won a defense contract to make the idea a reality. It was the seventh public defense contract to develop or maintain AI-related systems that Shanghai Jiao Tong had signed since the start of 2023. The university would go on to land seven more before 2024 was out. Aside from the maritime kill-web project, the school was also tasked with helping the military track fast-moving targets using layered AI models, rapidly generate underwater drone designs and make drone swarms more sensitive to changes in radio frequencies.

For years, Chinese leader Xi Jinping has tried to recruit his country's civilian institutions to help the People's Liberation Army modernize, a concept known as "civil-military fusion." With AI, the campaign appears to be producing results.

China's military has gone outside its typical network of state-owned defense contractors and military-linked research institutes in recent years, tapping hundreds of suppliers including private companies and civilian universities in a push to incorporate AI into its operations and weapons systems, according to new data published Wednesday by researchers at Georgetown University.

While the U.S. and Chinese militaries have both sought to tap the knowledge and innovative energy of universities and the private sector, the data indicates the PLA has been able to do it more systematically. That gives China a potential leg up in the challenging task of weaving AI into national defense, security analysts say.

It also puts the U.S. in a bind as it tries to prevent China from developing technologies that might give its military an edge over American forces.