Hanwha, KAIST to develop AI weapons

Hanwha Systems, the country’s leading defense business, and state-run science research university Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) have launched a project to co-develop artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to be applied to military weapons, joining the global competition to develop autonomous arms.
The two parties recently opened a joint research center at KAIST, where researchers from the university and Hanwha will carry out various studies into how technologies of the Fourth Industrial Revolution can be utilized on future battlefields.

Twenty-five researchers from KAIST will participate in the center, while the defense arm of Hanwha Group will dispatch its researchers in accordance with subjects of research, according to a PR official from the firm.

AI arms, which would search for and eliminate targets without human control, are called the third revolution in the battleground after gunpowder and nuclear weapons.

Such weapons would include an AI-based missile that can control its speed and altitude on its own and detect an enemy radar fence in real time while in flight. AI-equipped unmanned submarines and armed quadcopters would also be among autonomous arms.

The Hanwha official said the joint research center will focus on four tasks by priority _ developing an AI-based command system, an AI algorithm for an unmanned sub’s navigation, an AI-based aviation training system and an AI-based object-tracking technique.