How China Caught Up With the U.S. in Drone Warfare | WSJ U.S. vs. China

(man speaks foreign language) (jet engine booms) - [Narrator] These are videos released by China's state broadcasters. (bomb explodes) And experts say, it shows the country has made huge strides in developing military drones for the air, land, and sea. But what's really grabbing experts attention is this, large swarms of systems that show China appears to be equipping these drones with artificial intelligence.

- While we were focused elsewhere in the world, China saw what they call that window of strategic opportunity to actually build a force that could compete with the US. - [Narrator] China has spent decades, modernizing its military with the express goal of catching up to the US. AI-enabled drones are key to achieving that goal.

While machines that fight entire wars on their own might be a ways off, experts say limited versions of these drones could be used in battle in just a few years. So who will make these drones first and how will they be used? (bright music) The first step of building an AI drone fleet is to build machines that could run the AI software.

The US has long led the world in advanced military weapons with more combat aircraft, armored fighting vehicles, and aircraft carriers than any other country. To compete, China has copied some of the US' most powerful systems. For instance, its Wing Loong is comparable to the US' Reaper drone, which is used for offensive strikes.

Its Soaring Drgon drone is similar to the US' Global Hawk surveillance drone. Like the US, China's been building drones that operate across domains of battle. Both are making unmanned surface vehicles and submarines, which could be used for surveillance, laying mines, or firing torpedoes at warships.

And on the ground, both are developing drones like these robotic dogs, which could be used to assess threats, fire small arms, and potentially even handle explosives while humans stay at a safe distance. And then there are the small, cheap systems. While experts say America leads in large military drones, China is the world leader in consumer-grade drones and it dominates the global supply chain to make these systems inexpensively.

China's DJI controls nearly 3/4 of the global market. The US, meanwhile, has struggled to make reliable small drones at scale, which is why both sides in the Ukraine war have largely stuck to DJI drones, though the company says it opposes use of its drones for combat. Small and mid-sized drones can't fly as far or as fast as large drones, and they can't carry as much firepower.

But in the future, similar drones could be very useful when linked to other drones. The US and China are exploring a few strategies for using AI drones, but they appear to have advantages in different areas. One of the most sought after approaches is swarms using large numbers of drones in land, air, or sea, all linked with AI to overwhelm an opponent or carry out a mission.

Even if each individual device has limited capabilities, swarms work best when some systems can be taken out without compromising the overall mission. - The comparative advantage that China has in the smaller systems, they could use for things like swarms as long as they're able to, you know, get the actual technology knowhow behind enabling those. - [Narrator] For instance, in this video, multiple Chinese drones are purportedly working together to locate and take out a target.

Both countries have used drone swarms, but only in trainee exercises. In the future, drone swarms may not require human involvement, but they might be programmed to keep humans in the loop. US Pentagon policy says humans are responsible for use of force by autonomous systems.

But many worry, America's opponents would not follow the same ethical guidelines, which could enable them to strike faster. - And the United States were very concerned about lethal autonomous weapons, this idea that a drone would operate completely independent from a human and actually engage targets. But the problem with all of this is that our adversaries are unlikely to participate in any kind of ban on lethal autonomous weapons.

And the United States, in fact, is not participating in any kind of ban. - [Narrator] A simpler approach to swarms that's actually been battle-tested is called drone stacks. Here, different individually controlled drones are brought into a battle space to perform distinct and often sequential functions, like target identification from a distance and then confirmation at closer range.

That information can be sent to a human operator who takes out the target. While AI can be used in limited ways within a drone stack, like for collision avoidance, the overall approach is much slower and less sophisticated than a swarm and it requires about as many human operators as drones. Because drone swarms and stacks are largely useful for reconnaissance, the more sensors they have on board, the more powerful they can be, particularly in a hypothetical conflict over Taiwan, both countries would need as much intelligence about the battle space as possible.

- I think this is a key place where they can contribute in terms of building up our combat capability, which in turn can bolster our deterrence and ensure this kind of conflict never happens in the first place. So I do think that a key capability drones will need to have is sensors for identifying targets in this highly contested battle space where we don't expect to have very good ability to see things so we can shoot them. - [Narrator] Those could include standard optical and infrared cameras, but also things like synthetic aperture radar sensors that could identify ships and other targets through clouds or electro optical sensors that can see moving targets.

A third approach to AI drones, of particular interest to the US, is collaborative combat aircraft using AI-equipped drones to support human fighters. For instance, gathering intelligence or delivering weapons. That way, the crude fighter jet would have assistance and be less of a target than if it were carrying the weapons itself.

Both countries are likely to need different types of AI-equipped drones. In a confrontation over Taiwan, China could launch drones from its shores while the US would need longer range drones to deploy from some of its closest military bases. But both are exploring a huge range of drones as they try to achieve or maintain a military advantage.

Over the past few decades, China has been executing a three part plan to catch up to the US military. Mechanization, or reducing how many troops it needs by emphasizing weapon systems, informationization, building its surveillance systems to control battle spaces and link military platforms, and intelligentization, speeding up decision making and communication with AI. So far, it says it's achieved the first objective.

Truly intelligent drones might take years if not decades. - I don't think we're gonna see AI-enabled drones in the sense of drones that operate completely independent from humans in the next five years or so. But I do think we'll start to see a new generation of drones that have different characteristics than the predator and reaper that we've all become so familiar with from the last 20 years in Iraq and Afghanistan.

- [Narrator] Eventually, AI drones could replace troops in many contexts. A US Air Force test earlier this year put algorithms head to head with human fighter pilots in dogfights. And these systems could massively scale up fleets.

A fighter jet can cost about $100 million. A DJI drone can cost a few hundred dollars. But the US has a long way to go to get these kinds of weapons on the battlefield.

Two key American efforts to develop AI are the Air Force's Collaborative Combat Aircraft Program and the Department of Defense's Replicator program, but both are just ramping up. The Air Force is funding two companies to develop autonomous fighter drones to fly in partnership with manned aircraft or connected to commanders on the ground, but it doesn't expect to receive fully operational drones until later in the decade. In the short term, AI and drones will likely be used in limited ways, such as more drones being built with autonomous navigation.

- When new technology pops-up, the first country that can use it and then harness that power, generally has a slight advantage, if not a great advantage. So timelines or timelines, but capabilities and actual practical use of those capabilities is more important.