The South China Morning Post (SCMP) on February 4, 2018, quoted a “senior scientist involved with the programme” as saying there is a project underway to update the computer systems on PLAN nuclear submarines with an AI decision-support system with “its own thoughts” that would reduce commanding officers’ workload and mental burden. The article describes plans for AI to take on “thinking” functions on nuclear subs, which could include, at a basic level, interpreting and answering signals picked up by sonar, through the use of convolutional neural networks. Military applications of AI has emerged as a top priority in PLA defense innovation, including advances in submarine development undertaken by the China Shipbuilding Industry Corporation, or CSIC. It is, therefore, unsurprising that the PLA would look to use machine learning to help sub crews and their commanders interpret the scarcity and complexity of information available in the undersea domain. SCMP quoted one researcher at the Institute of Acoustics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences as saying “In the past, the technology was too distant from application, but recently a lot of progress has been achieved. There seems to be hope around the corner.” Wu Chongjian (吴崇建), a chief submarine designer at CSIC, said China’s next-generation conventional submarines could leverage quantum communications, quantum navigation, and intelligent unmanned vehicle technologies. Concurrently, the PLAN is pursuing the development and deployment of unmanned underwater vehicles, such as the Sea Wing (海翼), which could support submarines engaged in military missions. In the future, the PLAN might seek to use UUVs in conjunction with submarines in an attempt to advance its anti-submarine warfare capabilities and shift the undersea balance. In this context, as the deep sea battlespace becomes even more complex and contested, the use of AI to support commanders for at least acoustic signal processing and underwater target recognition in the near term – and perhaps providing more direct decision support as the technology matures – seems to be a plausible.
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