In a quest to become the world’s most advanced defence force, the Indian government adopted a distinct and flexible policy framework to make them technologically equipped. With an exclusive budget to modernize the Indian armed forces through innovative technical solutions, the Government of India is spending around US$ 50 million annually on Artificial Intelligence (AI). The Indian Defence sector has been transformed through the latest innovations and joint efforts of research organizations, start-ups, and public and private academic institutions to develop unique products by using these highly capable technologies for surveillance systems at the border areas and many such strategic areas.
According to the Defence Ministry, modern AI-based systems in the military are new but still, they have made significant progress by launching AI-equipped military devices to increase operational capabilities. India is continuously enhancing its adoption of this game-changer technology solution, especially at the border with Pakistan and China through AI-based surveillance setup. The military has employed around 140 such set-ups consisting of UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles), sensors, high-quality cameras, radar inputs, etc to collect useful data obtained after AI processing to detect real-time intrusion events by enemies.
The Ministry of Defence with the vision to revolutionize the Indian Armed Forces at par with global standards, has rolled out 75 AI-based products in the maiden ‘AI in Defence’ convention in July 2022 witnessing smart surveillance, automation tools and robotics on board.
The use of AI-based robots and drones for border patrolling along with AI-enabled simulator technologies for training has improved accuracy and reduced the need for human resources drastically in remote border areas. Whereas, in the Aero India show in February 2023, AGNI-D a surveillance software based on AI was also announced for surveillance and restricting violations.
With the continuous advancement in technology and developing defence startup ecosystem, the inclusion of AI in the defence sector is enhancing capabilities in diverse areas such as surveillance, logistics, data, etc. It has the potential to witness exponential changes in the way the Indian Defence executes its operations by developing smart strategies by using real-time inputs powered by this extremely helpful technological tool in this most strategically important domain.