CSET's "Harnessed Lightning" outlined China's prioritization of AI's usage for military applications.

The Chinese military has made extraordinary progress in procuring AI systems for combat and support functions according to a CSET's report "Harnessed Lightning."

CSET Research Fellow Margarita Konaev anticipates a shift in the U.S. military's modernization of major weapons systems and AI capabilities now that the U.S. is pivoting away from counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism operations in the Middle East.

Research Fellow Margarita Konaev highlights the role of Turkish drones in recent conflicts and Russia's stance on the issue.

Research Analyst Ryan Fedasiuk reveals China's artificial intelligence intentions in an op-ed for Breaking Defense.

In an opinion piece for Politico Magazine, Ryan Fedasiuk highlights China's adoption of artificial intelligence into its military systems using evidence from his CSET report.

This report examines nearly 350 artificial intelligence-related equipment contracts awarded by the People’s Liberation Army and state-owned defense enterprises in 2020 to assess how the Chinese military is adopting AI. The report identifies China’s key AI defense industry suppliers, highlights gaps in U.S. export control policies, and contextualizes the PLA’s AI investments within China’s broader strategy to compete militarily with the United States.

Militaries around the world have often relied on the largest global defense companies to acquire and integrate cutting-edge technologies. This issue brief examines the investment and mergers and acquisition activities in artificial intelligence of the top 50 global defense companies — a key, if limited, approach to accessing AI innovation in the commercial sector — and assesses investment trends of their corporate venture capital subsidiaries and offers a geographic breakdown of defense companies and their AI target companies.

The Department of Defense can already begin applying its existing international science and technology agreements, global scientific networks, and role in multilateral institutions to stimulate digital defense cooperation. This issue brief frames this collection of options as a military AI cooperation toolbox, finding that the available tools offer valuable pathways to align policies, advance research, development, and testing, and to connect personnel–albeit in more structured ways in the Euro-Atlantic than in the Indo-Pacific.

As multinational collaboration on emerging technologies takes center stage, U.S. allies and partners must overcome the technological, bureaucratic, and political barriers to working together. This report assesses the challenges to multinational collaboration and explains how joint projects centered on artificial intelligence applications for military logistics and sustainment offer a viable path forward.