Written by Eduardo Baptista and Fanny Potkin |Reuters
In February, Chinese state-owned defense giant Norinco unveiled a military vehicle capable of autonomously carrying out combat support operations at speeds of 50km/h. It was provided by DeepSeek, a company that develops artificial intelligence models that is the pride of China’s technology sector.
The release of the Norinco P60 was touted by Communist Party officials in a press statement as an early showcase of how Beijing is leveraging deep-seeking and AI to keep up in its arms race with the United States, as leaders from both countries urge their militaries to prepare for conflict.
A Reuters review of hundreds of research papers, patents and procurement records outlines a systematic effort by the Chinese government to use AI for military advantage.
While the details of how the systems behind China’s next-generation weapons work and to what extent they are deployed are state secrets, procurement records and patents provide insight into China’s progress toward capabilities such as autonomous target recognition and real-time battlefield decision support, mirroring U.S. efforts.
Reuters cannot confirm whether all products have been built, and patents do not necessarily indicate operational technology.
The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) and its affiliates continue to use and explore Nvidia chips, including models that are subject to U.S. export controls, according to documents, bids and patents.
The documents do not detail when the hardware used was exported, so Reuters could not determine whether the chips were stockpiled before Washington imposed the restrictions. A patent recently filed in June indicates use by military-related research organizations. In September 2022, the US Department of Commerce banned exports of Nvidia’s popular A100 and H100 chips to China.
Nvidia spokesman John Rizzo said in a statement to Reuters that the company cannot track individual resales of products it has sold in the past, but that “recycling small amounts of old, used products does not enable anything new and does not raise any national security concerns. Military use of restricted products would not be a starting point without support, software and maintenance.”
The U.S. Treasury and Commerce Departments did not respond to questions about the findings from Reuters.
China’s military is increasingly using contractors who claim exclusive use of domestically produced hardware, such as Huawei’s AI chips, as early as 2025, said Sunny Zhang, a fellow at the Jamestown Foundation, a Washington-based defense policy think tank, who analyzed hundreds of bids issued by the People’s Liberation Army Acquisition Network over six months this year.
Reuters could not independently verify his claims, but the shift would coincide with a campaign by the Chinese government to publicly pressure domestic companies to use Chinese technology.
The news agency’s review of procurement notices and patents filed with the Chinese Patent Office found demand for and use of Huawei chips by PLA-affiliated organizations, but could not confirm all bids identified by Jamestown, which is expected to release a report this week that it provided earlier to Reuters.
Huawei declined to comment when asked about military deployment of its chips. China’s Ministry of Defense, DeepSeek, and Norinco did not respond to requests for comment on the use of AI for military purposes. Universities and defense companies that submitted patents and research papers seen by Reuters did not respond to similar questions.
Depends on deep seek
The use of the DeepSeek model was featured in more than a dozen bids from PLA groups submitted this year and seen by Reuters, but only one mentioned Alibaba’s Qwen, its main domestic rival.
Alibaba did not respond to a request for comment on Kwen’s military use.
Jamestown said DeepSeek-related procurement announcements are accelerating throughout 2025, and new military applications are appearing regularly on the PLA network.
The popularity of deep seeking in the People’s Liberation Army reflects what the Chinese government calls “algorithmic sovereignty,” or China’s pursuit of reducing dependence on Western technology while increasing control over critical digital infrastructure.
The U.S. Department of Defense declined to comment on the People’s Liberation Army’s use of AI.
“DeepSeek has actively provided, and will likely continue to provide, support to China’s military and intelligence operations,” a State Department spokesperson said in response to questions from Reuters.
The U.S. government will “pursue a bold and comprehensive strategy for U.S. AI technology with trusted foreign nations around the world, while keeping our technology out of the hands of our adversaries,” the spokesperson added.
AI-powered planning and applications
According to the document, China is considering AI-enabled robot dogs for mass reconnaissance and swarms of drones that autonomously track targets, as well as visually immersive command centers and advanced war game simulations.
In November 2024, the People’s Liberation Army issued a sci-fi-inspired tender for an AI-powered robot dog to scout for threats and eliminate explosion hazards together.
Reuters could not determine whether the bid was fulfilled. China has previously deployed armed robot dogs from AI robot maker Unitree in military training, according to images published by state media.
Unitree did not respond to inquiries regarding PLA activities.
A review of patents, bids, and research papers published over the past two years shows how the People’s Liberation Army and its affiliates are turning to AI to improve military planning, including developing technology to quickly analyze images taken by satellites and drones.
Researchers at Landship Information Technology, a Chinese company that integrates AI systems into military vehicles such as those made by Norinco, said in a white paper released in February to promote their services that their technology, built on Huawei chips, can quickly identify targets from satellite images while carrying out operations in conjunction with radars and aircraft.
According to Xi’an University of Technology, AI has also reduced the time it takes for military planners to move from finding and identifying targets to executing operations.
In a summary of their findings published in May, researchers at the institute said that a system using DeepSeek was able to evaluate 10,000 battlefield scenarios, each with different variables, terrain, and troop deployment, in 48 seconds.
Such a mission would have taken a traditional team of military planners 48 hours to complete, they said.
Reuters could not independently verify the researchers’ claims.
autonomous weapons
The document shows that China’s military is increasingly investing in autonomous battlefield technology.
Twenty bids and patents seen by Reuters show the military is looking to integrate AI into drones to enable them to recognize and track targets, as well as work together in formation with little human intervention.
Beihang University, known for its military aviation research, is using DeepSeek to improve decision-making for drone fleets when targeting “low-velocity, low-velocity, small-sized” threats (military abbreviation for unmanned and light aircraft), according to a patent application filed this year.
Amid growing concerns that a conflict between China and the United States could lead to the unchecked deployment of AI-powered weapons, China’s defense leaders have publicly pledged to maintain human control over their weapons systems.
The U.S. military, which is also investing in AI, aims to field thousands of autonomous drones by the end of 2025, in what officials say is an attempt to counter China’s numerical superiority in unmanned aerial vehicles.
US chip, Chinese model
Chinese defense contractors such as Shanxi 100 Trust Information Technology tout in their marketing materials their reliance on domestically produced components such as Huawei’s Ascend chips that enable their AI models to work.
The company did not respond to questions about its relationship with Huawei or the People’s Liberation Army.
Despite the shift to domestically produced processors, Nvidia hardware continues to be frequently cited in research by military academics, according to a review of patent applications over the past two years.
Reuters identified 35 applications mentioning the use of NVIDIA’s A100 chips by academics at the People’s Liberation Army’s National University of Defense Technology (NUDT) and Seven Sons, a group of Chinese universities that are under U.S. sanctions and have a history of conducting defense-related research for the Chinese government.
Around the same time, these companies filed 15 patents related to AI applications citing Huawei Ascend hardware, which is designed to replace NVIDIA chips.
As recently as June, the People’s Liberation Army Rocket Forces Institute of Technology filed a separate patent application for a remote sensing target detection system, saying the A100 chip was used to train the model.
Senior Colonel Zhu Qichao, who heads the NUDT research center, told Reuters last year that U.S. regulations were affecting their AI research “to some extent” but they were determined to close the technology gap.
Nvidia’s Rizzo downplayed the People’s Liberation Army’s demand for Nvidia’s hardware, saying China “has more than enough domestic chips for all military applications.”
Editor’s note: Reporting by Eduardo Baptista and Fanny Potkin. Editing: Brenda Go and Katerina Ann
