The UK's new Defence AI Centre is now operational

The UK's new Defence AI Centre is now operational – officials say the new collaborative centre will "enhance Defence's ability to harness the game-changing power of artificial intelligence to achieve strategic outcomes." It has already been examining work on uncrewed ground vehicles and more covert drones. The Defence AI Centre (DAIC) has a "federated, collaborative model" the Ministry of Defence (MOD) says. Work by its AI project teams will be split across three of its existing organisations: Defence Digital, the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory, and Defence Equipment & Support's Future Capability Group. The Defence AI centre was first discussed publicly by General Sir Patrick Sanders, Commander of Strategic Command in May 2021 in a landmark speech in which he said the UK was being confronted by a "technological tsunami" of threats among which "the one ring to rule them all, is Artificial Intelligence…" In that same speech General Sanders said MOD would "adopt and exploit AI for defence at scale", adding that the source of military advantage lies ever less in hardware platforms, and increasingly in the ability to "sense, understand and orchestrate… sensor networks, the data, the PED [processing, exploitation, and dissemination of intelligence] and the effectors: kinetic or non-kinetic" across a given kill-chain.