TLDR: Future conflicts will be dominated by AI-driven ‘agentic warfare’ and multi-domain operations, with energy consumption emerging as a critical limiting factor. China’s advancements in ‘intelligentised warfare’ and its collaboration with Pakistan pose significant challenges, while India is also investing in defense AI, highlighting the global race for AI superiority and the urgent need for robust energy infrastructure, particularly nuclear power, to support AI-intensive military operations.
The landscape of modern warfare is undergoing a profound transformation, ushering in an ‘agentic’ age where Artificial Intelligence (AI) agents are poised to play a pivotal role in military decision-making, intelligence gathering, and autonomous systems. This evolving battlefield, characterized by multi-domain operations, faces a significant constraining factor: energy consumption.
Even before the recent advancements in AI models like China’s DeepSeek, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had already begun deploying AI across its major warfighting functions under the banner of ‘intelligentised warfare’. Beijing is reportedly adopting a graded approach, initially applying AI to enhance the performance of battlefield equipment, such as improving artillery accuracy and reducing the interval between shots. Furthermore, China is integrating generative AI with military drones to automatically target opponents’ radars with greater precision upon detection. Experts note that the DeepSeek advances are expected to further bolster China’s military AI capabilities.
This rapid progression in military AI, particularly by China, raises concerns for India. China is actively assisting Pakistan with its Centre of Artificial Intelligence and Computing of the Pakistan Air Force, established in 2020, which now features an elaborate Cognitive Electronic Warfare programme aimed at leveraging AI and machine learning for effective operations.
Kris P. Singh, the Indian-American promoter and CEO of Holtec International, emphasized the future of warfare, stating, “Ten years from now, think of the next war… If it were to occur, it will be fought by robots and AI… That means you must have AI; you must have data crunching capability, and the ability to run big data centres… So, the investment in AI data centres and robotics is going to underpin the future defence posture of the country. And for that, the single most important ingredient is enormous amounts of electricity generation. If you don’t generate power, all this would not be possible.” This highlights the critical link between AI military prowess and a nation’s energy infrastructure.
According to a research report by the Delhi-based Centre for Joint Warfare Studies, an autonomous think tank initiated by the Ministry of Defence in 2007, AI is set to rapidly transform the landscape of warfare, with deep technology being deployed for tasks ranging from autonomous weapons systems to intelligence gathering and cybersecurity.
India’s defense establishment has been an early mover in the battlefield application of AI. The Defence Research and Development Organisation’s (DRDO) Centre for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (CAIR) was established in 1986 with the specific objective of developing autonomous technologies in domains such as combat, path planning, sensors, target identification, underwater mine detection, patrolling, logistics, and localization. A senior government official noted that CAIR is making significant progress in these areas.
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However, a crucial limiting factor in the widespread adoption and advancement of AI in warfare is energy. Fields such as Big Data analysis, machine learning, predictive analysis, and natural language processing demand substantial energy, including vast spinning reserves of grid power. To support the massive data centers that drive AI technologies, countries are increasingly exploring nuclear sources of energy. India currently faces a significant shortfall in nuclear power, with an installed capacity of only about seven and a half gigawatts, underscoring the urgent need for robust energy generation to sustain its AI ambitions in defense.
