With warfare increasingly becoming "networked, digitised and intelligent", technology would play a pivotal role in deciding the outcome of combats in the future, Chief of Defence Staff General (CDS) Anil Chauhan said here on Friday.
Addressing the Chanakya Dialogues conclave here on the "Bharat 2047: Atmanirbhar In War" theme, he said data-centric warfare includes looking at network security, redundancy, latency in data flow and the use of artificial intelligence as well as storage, collection and analytics of data.
Pitching for developing indigenous capabilities for defence manufacturing, IAF chief Air Chief Marshal AP Singh said the Indian Air Force would prefer a "homegrown" system even if it gives "slightly lesser performance." He made this assertion in his address at the Chanakya Dialogues.
Referring to the trends in robotics and automation, General Ghouhan told the gathering that it presents a possibility of combat between humans and machines, and among machines in the future.
"We all know that warfare is increasingly becoming digitised, networked and intelligent. So in future, I think technologies like artificial intelligence, data analytics and supercomputing will play a pivotal role in deciding the outcome of combat," Chauhan said. "The Indian armed forces actually want to transit to data-centric warfare or intelligentised warfare."
Explaining the concept of Theater Commands, the Chief of Defence staff described it as an attempt to separate force generation from force application.
"Till now, both these responsibilities were vested with the service headquarters or the service chiefs. He was responsible for recruitment, training, equipment acquisition and maintenance, among others," the CDS said.
"So force generation and force application was one responsibility. Now, we are trying to separate that. We are trying to nominate a theatre commander who would be capable of carrying out multi-domain operation, that means in all the three domains, including support from space and cyber," he said.
General Chauhan said, "In future wars, one may be able to use data analytics so that decisions taken during combat are better and faster," adding that with advances in drone technology, the speed of warfare may also be higher.
IAF chief said there is a need for manufacturing at least 35-40 military aircraft in India every year and stressed the target is not impossible to meet. He said the IAF's first priority when it comes to acquisition, is "anything that is home grown". "So I'm very convinced in my mind that even if a home grown system gives me a slightly lesser performance... If it is 90 per cent or 85 per cent of what I get in the world market, we will go for home grown system because that is the only way we can get over with always looking outward to get our systems," he said.
"But at the same time, a home grown system cannot just happen overnight. It will take time and it needs to be supported. So for that, Indian Air Force is fully committed to any R&D project," he said.
He said India needs to develop capability to produce at least 35-40 fighter aircraft every year to meet the requirements of replacing aging fleets.
"If some private industry comes in for a make in India, let's say, we add another maybe 12-18 aircraft per year from their side. So we are reaching that number. So that is possible," he said.
