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Hayley Wong

China’s armed forces must find ways to undermine the data and computing capacity of its adversaries as AI gains an ever-greater foothold in combat planning and decisions, according to a military mouthpiece.
In an article on Tuesday, the PLA Daily said the military’s ability to counter the artificial intelligence-based combat skills of its opponents was an emerging area of warfare that would be vital in the future.
Succeeding in the area would mean targeting three main levels of an opponent’s AI processing: data, algorithms and computing capacity.
The article suggested that one possibility was to “pollute” data or change the distribution of data during warfare to make an adversary’s language models less accurate. Methods such as camouflaging weapons and running fake data on networks – which the article said foreign militaries had already adopted – would mislead the learning process of an enemy’s models.
Another option was “logical deception” of algorithms, in which one side operates outside the learning scope or against the logic of the models. In physical combat operations this could mean directing drone swarms to do irregular manoeuvres to prevent foreign forces from learning their routes and formation.


The People’s Liberation Army has long discussed the idea of such “deceptive warfare”.
The article on Tuesday said that through “noise” – or excessive data in forms such as images, audio, video and electromagnetic fields – China’s military could reduce the efficiency of an adversary’s computing.
During conflicts, the PLA could also target adversaries’ computing power centres and network facilities, as well as other supporting infrastructure like electricity support systems, it said.
It is the first time the official PLA Daily has explained terminology around specifically targeting adversaries’ military AI models.
It urged the military to “strengthen dialectical thinking and theoretical innovation” for counter-AI operations in the age of digitalised warfare.
Lyle Goldstein, director of the China initiative at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs, said the PLA had been “moving swiftly in the direction of anti-AI tactics” while widely discussing the use of AI on the battlefield in the past five years.
Its illustration of such a concept was “particularly interesting” as it emphasised the combination of “hard and soft combat capabilities”.
“The Chinese understand that warfare is constantly evolving, while still retaining various traditional elements,” he said.


Goldstein said the Ukraine war and a proposed “hellscape” plan, as warned by United States Indo-Pacific Commander Admiral Samuel Paparo when discussing conflict over Taiwan, were “wake-up calls” for the PLA.
Unmanned systems – which are controlled remotely but could eventually become autonomous – have been key to Kyiv’s asymmetric combat against Russian forces since the Ukraine war began in 2022.
Last year, Paparo said that if the PLA attacked Taiwan, a large number of uncrewed systems could be used to distract mainland Chinese forces and buy the US time to respond.
Song Zhongping, a military commentator and former PLA instructor, said it was natural for the PLA to conduct “reverse studies” on AI and prevent adversaries from effectively collecting data.
Chinese military philosophy has traditionally emphasised the necessity of both “spear and shield” in warfare.
Timothy Heath, a senior international defence researcher at the Rand Corporation, said the technology referred to in the PLA Daily article was probably not up and running yet.
“Given that both the US and Chinese militaries are in the initial stages of integrating AI into their military weapons and platforms, it is likely that the capabilities mentioned in the article are theoretical and proposals, rather than operating doctrine,” he said.
He noted that vulnerabilities in AI systems, not only those for the military, were well understood and not especially new.
“The PLA is likely to carry out more training, research and theory work on the topic of how to secure data to ensure that AI-powered militaries can operate effectively,” Heath said.


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For the first time, the official PLA Daily spells out how it might target an enemy’s AI combat models


For the first time, the official PLA Daily spells out how it might target an enemy’s AI combat models.


How China’s military might use anti-AI tactics on the battlefields of the future

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}For the first time, the official PLA Daily spells out how it might target an enemy’s AI combat models

For the first time, the official PLA Daily spells out how it might target an enemy’s AI combat models