New Delhi, October 23: India is restructuring its defence framework to address modern cyber threats and drone warfare by scaling up domestic missile production and developing a military Artificial Intelligence layer, Defence Secretary Rajesh Kumar Singh said on Friday, ANI reported.

Source: ANI via Latestly — Defence Secretary on military AI layer

Speaking at the Agrasar Bharat Manch event, Singh said AI would be used for decision support, target acquisition and data fusion leading to a sensor-to-shooter loop, and that the data involved made an indigenous layer necessary. "We have to develop our own AI layer for our military services," he said, according to ANI.

Source: ANI via Indian Economic Observer — Defence Secretary remarks

Singh said work is under way with the IndiaAI Mission to develop the compute, which is already being procured, and that the armed forces intend to draw on private industry partners already selected by the AI Mission to help build the layer. DefenceWatch, in an independent summary of the remarks, said the systems are expected to support decision-making, target acquisition and data fusion, while operational decisions will continue to require human oversight.

Source: DefenceWatch — India to develop indigenous AI layer for military services

"Because nobody else will give you that technology, or because it's too critical a technology to rely on foreign companies. We intend to do it ourselves to the extent we can, but of course collaboration with friendly foreign countries will not be ruled out," Singh said, according to ANI.

Source: ANI via Indian Economic Observer — Defence Secretary remarks

On air defence, Singh said India has advanced significantly in establishing a comprehensive multi-layered air defence grid, and that the Integrated Air Command and Control System (IACCS) — India's airspace control system — is fully networked across platforms, ground radars, aerial platforms and air defence systems, ANI reported.

Source: ANI via Indian Economic Observer — Defence Secretary remarks

He also said older air defence guns, retrofitted with radars and networked, have become useful again against drones because they are much cheaper to use than missiles costing, in his words, somewhere between Rs 5 crore and Rs 10 crore each — yaani roughly five to ten crore rupees per missile — and that increasing the scale of ballistic missile production is critical to bring down costs. About 17 large private and some public players have taken, or are taking, technology transfers for different ranges of conventional missiles to build surge capacity, he added, according to ANI.

Source: ANI via Indian Economic Observer — Defence Secretary remarks

Sources: ANI (via Latestly and Indian Economic Observer); DefenceWatch.