The Chinese state defense giant, Norinco, presented in February a military vehicle capable of autonomously carrying out combat support operations at a speed of 50 kilometers per hour. It is powered by DeepSeek, the company whose artificial intelligence model is the pride of the Chinese technology sector.
The launch of the Norinco P60 was touted by Communist Party officials in press releases as an early show of how Beijing is using DeepSeek and artificial intelligence to catch up in its arms race with the United States, at a time when leaders of both countries have urged their militaries to prepare for conflict.
Research papers, patents and acquisition records offer a snapshot of Beijing’s systematic effort to leverage AI for military advantage, according to Reuters.
Details about how the systems behind China’s next-generation weapons work and the extent to which they have been deployed are a state secret. However, acquisition records and patents offer clues about Beijing’s progress toward capabilities such as autonomous target recognition and real-time battlefield decision support, in a way that mirrors US efforts.
Reuters could not determine whether all the products had been built, and patents do not necessarily indicate working technology. The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and its affiliates continue to use and seek Nvidia chips, including models subject to US export controls, according to documents, tenders and patents.
The agency also could not establish whether those chips were stored before Washington imposed the restrictions, as the documents do not detail when the hardware used was exported. Patents filed in June show its use by research institutes linked to the military. In September 2022, the US Department of Commerce banned exports of Nvidia’s popular A100 and H100 chips to China.
Nvidia spokesperson John Rizzo stated that while the company cannot track individual resales of previously sold products, “recycling small quantities of old second-hand products does not enable anything new or raise any national security concerns. The use of products restricted to military applications would be infeasible without support, software and maintenance.”
The Chinese military also increased its use of contractors in 2025 that claim to exclusively use domestically made hardware, such as Huawei’s artificial intelligence chips, said Sunny Cheung, a member of the Washington-based Jamestown Foundation defense policy think tank, who analyzed several hundred tenders issued by the PLA Procurement Network over six months this year. year.
The change apparently coincides with a public pressure campaign by Beijing on domestic companies to use technology made in China.
The news agency’s review of procurement notices and patents filed with China’s Patent Office found demand and use of Huawei chips by PLA affiliates, but was unable to verify all the tenders seen by the Jamestown Foundation, which published a report on Monday.
Huawei declined to comment when asked about military use of its chips. The Chinese Ministry of Defense, DeepSeek and Norinco also did not respond to requests for comment on the use of AI in military applications. The universities and defense companies that submitted the patents and research papers also did not respond to similar questions.
DeepSeek dependency
The use of DeepSeek models was mentioned in a dozen PLA entity tenders submitted this year, while only one referenced Alibaba’s Qwen, a major domestic rival.
Alibaba did not respond to a request for comment on Qwen’s military use.
Procurement notices related to DeepSeek have accelerated throughout 2025, with new military applications appearing regularly on the PLA network, according to Jamestown.
DeepSeek’s popularity among the PLA also reflects China’s pursuit of what Beijing calls “algorithmic sovereignty”: reducing dependence on Western technology while strengthening control over critical digital infrastructure.
The US Department of Defense declined to comment on the PLA’s use of AI.
A State Department spokesperson said in response to Reuters that “DeepSeek has voluntarily provided, and will likely continue to provide, support to China’s military and intelligence operations.”
Washington “will pursue a bold and inclusive strategy for American AI technology with trusted foreign countries around the world, while keeping the technology out of the hands of our adversaries,” the spokesperson added.
AI-powered planning and applications
China is considering AI-powered robot dogs that operate in groups, swarms of drones that autonomously track targets, as well as visually immersive command centers and advanced wargame simulations, according to the documents.
In November 2024, the PLA launched a sci-fi tender for AI-powered robot dogs that would jointly scan for threats and eliminate explosive hazards. China had already deployed armed robot dogs from artificial intelligence robotics maker Unitree in military exercises, according to images published in state media.
Review of patents, tenders and research articles published in the past two years shows how the PLA and affiliated entities are turning to AI to improve military planning, including developing technology to quickly analyze images taken by satellites and drones.
Find out: DeepSeek launches an ‘intermediate’ AI model on the way to the next generation
Researchers at Landship Information Technology, a Chinese company that integrates AI systems into military vehicles — including Norinco’s — said in a white paper published in February to promote its services that its technology, based on Huawei chips, can quickly identify targets from satellite images, while coordinating with radars and aircraft to execute operations.
According to Xi’an University of Technology, AI has also shortened the time it takes for military planners to go from finding and identifying a target to executing an operation. Researchers at that institute noted, in a summary of their findings published in May, that their DeepSeek-powered system was able to evaluate 10,000 battlefield scenarios—each with different variables, terrain, and force deployments—in 48 seconds.
It would have taken a conventional team of military planners 48 hours to complete such a task, they said.
Autonomous weapons
Chinese military entities are investing in increasingly autonomous battlefield technology, the documents suggest.
Two dozen tenders and patents show the military trying to integrate AI into drones so they can recognize and track targets, as well as work together in formations with little human intervention, according to Reuters.
Beihang University, known for its military aviation research, is using DeepSeek to improve the decision-making of drone swarms when targeting “low, slow and small” threats (the military term for drones and light aircraft), according to a patent application filed this year.
Chinese defense leaders have publicly pledged to maintain human control over weapons systems, amid growing concern that a conflict between Beijing and Washington could lead to uncontrolled deployment of AI-powered munitions.
The US military, which is also investing in artificial intelligence, aims to deploy thousands of autonomous drones by the end of 2025, in what officials say is an attempt to counter China’s numerical advantage in unmanned aerial vehicles.
American chips, Chinese models
Chinese defense contractors, such as Shanxi 100 Trust Information Technology, have touted in marketing materials their reliance on domestically produced components, such as Huawei’s Ascend chips, that enable AI models to operate.
The company did not respond to questions about its relationship with Huawei and the PLA.
Despite the transition to domestic processors, Nvidia hardware continues to be frequently cited in research by military-affiliated academics, according to a review of patent applications from the past two years.
The agency identified 35 requests referencing the use of Nvidia’s A100 chips by academics at the PLA’s National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) and the “Seven Sons,” a group of Chinese universities under U.S. sanctions and with a history of conducting defense-related research for Beijing.
In the same period, those entities filed 15 patents related to AI applications that cited Huawei Ascend hardware, designed as a replacement for Nvidia chips.
Last June, the PLA Rocket Force Engineering University separately filed a patent for a remote sensing target detection system that it said used A100 chips for model training.
Senior Colonel Zhu Qichao, who heads a NUDT research center, told Reuters last year that US restrictions have affected their AI research “to some extent”, although he said they are determined to close the technological gap.
Nvidia’s Rizzo downplayed the PLA’s demand for the company’s hardware, saying China “has more than enough domestic chips for all of its military applications.”
With information from Reuters
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