A year ago, we published the Integrated Review, committing to strengthen security and defence and to modernise our armed forces. We warned then that these steps were a necessary response to the deteriorating global security environment, including state-based threats. Since then, Russia’s illegal invasion of Ukraine has brought all the horrors of industrial-age warfare back to the heart of Europe. The tragic events unfolding in Ukraine are a stark reminder of the importance of ensuring that our armed forces can meet the sort of conventional military challenge we hoped our continent had left behind in the 20th Century.

However, we also noted that we live in an era of persistent global competition, characterised by hybrid and sub-threshold threats. Russia’s appalling invasion of Ukraine removes any blurring of the line between war and peace, but was preceded by many years of malign activity. As we stand in solidarity with the global community in challenging the actions of the Putin regime, we recognise that Defence must be relevant and effective across the spectrum of competition and conflict.

To meet these various challenges, Defence must prioritise research, development and experimentation, maintaining strategic advantage by exploiting innovative concepts and cutting-edge technological advances – and Artificial Intelligence is one of the technologies essential to Defence modernisation. Imagine a soldier on the front line, trained in highly-developed synthetic environments, guided by portable command and control devices analysing and recommending different courses of action, fed by database capturing and processing the latest information from hundreds of small drones capturing thousands of hours of footage. Imagine autonomous resupply systems and combat vehicles, delivering supplies and effects more efficiently without putting our people in danger. Imagine the latest Directed Energy Weapons using lightning-fast target detection algorithms to protect our ships, and the digital backbone which supports all this using AI to identify and defend against cyber threats.

AI has enormous potential to enhance capability, but it is all too often spoken about as a potential threat. AI-enabled systems do indeed pose a threat to our security, in the hands of our adversaries, and it is imperative that we do not cede them a vital advantage. We also recognise that the use of AI in many contexts, and especially by the military, raises profound issues. We take these very seriously – but think for a moment about the number of AI-enabled devices you have at home and ask yourself whether we shouldn’t make use of the same technology to defend ourselves and our values. We must be ambitious in our pursuit of strategic and operational advantage through AI, while upholding the standards, values and norms of the society we serve, and demonstrating trustworthiness.

This strategy sets out how we will adopt and exploit AI at pace and scale, transforming Defence into an ‘AI ready’ organisation and delivering cutting-edge capability; how we will build stronger partnerships with the UK’s AI industry; and how we will collaborate internationally to shape global AI developments to promote security, stability and democratic values. It forms a key element of the National AI Strategy and reinforces Defence’s place at the heart of Government’s drive for strategic advantage through science & technology.

Introduction