MOSCOW — Russian officials have unveiled a new 10-year defense plan that includes a special chapter on artificial intelligence, signaling Moscow’s focus on deploying autonomous weapons.
The move comes after Russia’s large-scale invasion of neighboring Ukraine has sparked an AI arms race on the battlefield there, particularly in the field of aerial and land drones, which analysts believe will define future conflicts.
Elements of artificial intelligence have long been used in the Russian military industry, which is tightly controlled by the government. For example, there is a cluster of ground robot makers for the Marker, Platforma-M, Soratnik, Uran-9 vehicles that have supplied their wares for the war against Ukraine.
The country’s missile complex also has a history of building varying degrees of autonomy into target-finding algorithms. Perhaps the most famous is the Perimeter program, a Soviet-era algorithm for orchestrating a nuclear retaliatory strike.
Russian officials are now equipping equipment sent for repair in Ukraine after the war with new technology, such as remote-controlled fire modules, automatic target tracking systems and propulsion systems, Vasily Elistratov, the Russian Defense Ministry’s AI technology officer, said at the Army-2024 Forum held in Russia this month.
According to Deputy Prime Minister Dmitry Chernyshenko, the size of the Russian AI market in 2023 will amount to almost 650 billion rubles, or $7.3 billion. This amount is many times larger than the total spending in the West on various offshoots of the technology.
The special AI budget line, for which officials have not yet given a number, is intended to facilitate the transition to defense applications. A specialized department for the development of artificial intelligence is now present in the Russian Defense Ministry, Chernyshenko announced.
For example, work is now underway on an AI control function for the S-500 air defense system, with threat assessment and damage prediction in the event of a possible ballistic missile attack.
“The Russian defense industry will develop artificial intelligence and automated systems for high-speed products where errors are not so critical,” said Sergei Smyslov, an independent defense industry expert based in Russia. With that in mind, potential applications include missile defense systems, artillery shells and aerial drones, he added.
Another area of AI use will be in aviation and artillery to increase their efficiency, said Pavel Luzin, a senior fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis. Autonomous attack drones are likely to remain a commodity for a long time. As for autonomous ground robots, most of them will be used to resupply troops on the battlefield and evacuate the wounded. AI will also be used in computer modeling of military campaigns as they prepare, Luzin said.
Russia will also use AI to improve the production processes of military products, with automatic quality controls that, if they fail, lead to a production halt.
The Department of Defense will probably not be able to effectively develop AI weapons on its own. There is a staffing problem in the Department of Defense’s scientific institutes, as the best graduates tend to go elsewhere.
According to Luzin, government officials have instead set up a development path in state-owned enterprises, for example through Rostec companies and the Era Foundation.
In early 2022, Roselektronika Holding of Rostec State Corporation established the Artificial Intelligence Technologies Research Laboratory, which conducts research on the use of AI in radio communication systems, developments in virtual reality technologies, big data technologies and machine learning of deep neural networks.
The Era Foundation seeks to identify new technology from private companies and universities. In August, the foundation selected eight projects — including an unmanned boat, a remote-controlled tower, several drones and a drone detection system — that will receive funding to go into mass production.
