'No force can survive without utilizing AI': CDS Subramani on why commanders must retain final say in modern warfare

CDS General Subramani said future warfare will centre on AI, resilient networks and integrated "systems of systems". He stressed keeping commanders in control of AI decisions, deploying AI at the tactical edge, using digital twins and rapidly scaling defence technology from prototypes to production.

Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General NS Raja Subramani has stressed the growing role of artificial intelligence, resilient networks and integrated military systems in future warfare, saying modern militaries will increasingly operate as a "system of systems" while commanders retain control over critical decisions.

Speaking at the Defence Tech Summit organized by the Centre for Emerging Technologies at the United Service Institution of India (USI), Subramani said warfare is moving beyond individual platforms and capabilities towards greater integration across domains.

"Today, it is not about individual platforms, individual services or individual capabilities. It is about a system-of-systems approach," the CDS said.

He said multi-domain operations are not simply about conducting operations across multiple domains, but about using capabilities from different domains to create effects faster than an adversary can understand and respond.

"All assets have to communicate in near real time and be able to share data. They also need to get this data to the commander in real time and enable him to make the decision based on which the effects can be created," Subramani said.

"Reliable networks that can survive in an electronically contested environment are a must," he said, adding that these could include space-based, optical-fibre-based, Wi-Fi-based, radio-based and software-defined-radio-based networks.

He also underlined the need to protect military sensors, networks, computing infrastructure and data.

"Sustainment and resilience today mean sustaining our sensors, sustaining our networks, ensuring that our compute is protected and ensuring that our data is not poisoned," he said.

Subramani said AI would become indispensable to modern militaries, but stressed that it should support, rather than replace, commanders in critical decision-making.

"No force can survive without utilizing AI. But at the same time, we have to be clear that the decision has to be made by the commander. It is not enough only to have data. It is not enough only to have machine learning. You require experts to train that data," he said.

The CDS said the armed forces would need safeguards while deploying AI for military applications.

"We need to understand and utilize AI for the purposes that it is meant to be used for, while ensuring adequate safeguards and ensuring that the final decision is left with the commander," he said.

"We have to have both AI at the centre and AI at the edge so that it can work even in a communication-denied environment," he said.

"Digital engineering gives us a way out. We can model the physical world digitally, look at how it can be connected, how it can be simulated and look at its reliability," he said.

"Digital engineering and digital twins allow us to quickly learn, develop, iterate and improve. I think this is the way forward as far as we are concerned."

He said digital twins should be used across the life cycle of military platforms rather than simply as alternatives to physical models. "If we have a digital twin of an aircraft, we can simulate and model it over its entire life cycle," he said.

The CDS said future warfare could increasingly focus on disrupting an adversary's ability to function by targeting its networks, data and decision-making systems.

"You need not necessarily destroy a physical system to deprive an organization of its ability to function. If you can deprive it of its networks, data, or its ability to sense, understand and decide, automatically you have broken the coherence of that organization."

"It is not the force which acquires the technology first which is going to win. It is that force which can adapt, learn quickly and utilize that technology and again reinvent itself based on the technology that it has got," he said.

He said India already has a generation of technically capable officers willing to experiment, adapt and work with industry and academia.

"India is already there, but we need to speed up," he said.

"From the industry, there are three things I ask: volume, scale and speed. It is important for the industry not only to produce a prototype but quickly scale that prototype to a product and then scale it to deliver quantities fast," he said.

He also said the armed forces would focus on articulating their requirements rather than prescribing specific technologies to industry.

"We are not going to prescribe the technology for the solution. You come up with the desired technology, the desired solution to our problems and, working together, I am sure that we will be able to achieve what we want."