Hyderabad: Despite being aware of artificial intelligence, the country has not been able to benefit from the technology, Chief of Army Staff General Bipin Rawat said on Sunday at the valedictory of the National Conference on Self Reliance in Defence Manufacturing.
The Army Chief said, “We have our adversary on the northern border spending huge amounts of money on artificial intelligence. It is time for us also to focus on artificial intelligence and big data analytics. As of now, we understand artificial intelligence and big data analytics, but I don’t think we have really understood how to incorporate this and utilise this to our advantage.”
He emphasised the need to collaborate with industry to understand the functioning of these technologies as military affairs is now based on technological advancements. “The rapid advances in technology necessitate that we now incorporate the industrial sector in defence manufacturing.”
Speaking about the growing threat of cyber warfare and the need to be prepared, he said, “We have to understand that we have disputed land borders on our western sector. We don’t see peace on the horizon anywhere in the near future and armed forces need to be prepared. (They) need to be prepared by imbibing new technologies, keeping pace with advancements in warfare. Gone are the days when people fought across sectors with guns and rifles. We are going to see a lot of non-contact warfare happening.”
He emphasised the need to come up with a battlefield management system as a plethora of information was coming from various sources such as satellite surveillance and drones.
The country is the largest importer of defence equipment, and he called on the country to become an prominent exporter.
Irrespective of position, he said that the men in uniform would help to be a link between defence and industry, as defence manufacturing cannot solely depend on DRDO and DPSUs.
He noted that the minister of defence was keen on removing bottlenecks faced by the industry in defence manufacture.
