How Robot Dogs and Drone Swarms Could Change the Future of Combat

In February 2025, a state-owned defence firm, Norinco, declared the P60, a combat support vehicle that could accomplish missions at speeds of 50 kilometres per hour and be autonomous. The working ability of the car is based on DeepSeek, an AI system that the Chinese officials emphasized as a symbol of the national development of artificial intelligence. 

The launch of the P60 was not only the proving of the technological capacity but also made a clear statement that Beijing is interested in using AI to improve its strategic positions in the ongoing arms race with Washington. 

The company reviewed scholarly articles, patent filings, and procurement documents found by Reuters and confirmed that China is systematically using AI to amass a military edge. 

Although the exact capabilities of these AI systems are not publicly available, published documents show that there are continued advancements in areas that include autonomous target recognition and battlefield decision-support, which are areas that are likely to alter the very nature of future warfare.  

Huawei Chips and the American Prohibition of Nvidia Hardware

Even though the United States has enacted a prohibition on the sale of Nvidia’s sophisticated A100 and H100 chips to China in 2022, the analysis conducted by Reuters shows that Chinese military scientists still use these elements. Nvidia chips are cited in patent applications as late as June 2025 in PLA-related institutes, but when and how they were acquired is unclear. 

Nvidia spokesperson John Rizzo admitted that it is challenging to trace the resale of the legacy products, but that limited use of second-hand chips would not present a threat to national security, and that using restricted products in the military would be a non-starter. 

At the same time, the Chinese military is increasing its adoption of Huawei AI chips, and especially the Ascend series, which serves as a domestic substitute to Nvidia chipsets. The analysts of the Jamestown Foundation saw that the purchase of Huawei chips began to appear more frequently in the PLA procurement notices, which is in line with the encouragement of local technology by Beijing. 

Huawei, Norinco and the Chinese Ministry of Defence are yet to respond in terms of their use in the military.  

The Autonomous Battlefield Aerial Swarm to Robot Dog

Military ambitions of China are not limited to data processing but also to actual combat drills. The PLA is exploring ways in which AI will control robotic dogs, drone swarms, and computerized battlefield systems that can work with limited human oversight. In late 2024, a tender specified the requirements of AI-controlled robot dogs with the ability to reconstruct areas as a group, sniff explosives, and assess threats. 

Although it is unclear whether these units are already in the field, it is possible that, before, there were military exercises that showed the implementation of armed robot dogs made by Unitree, a robotics company that is based in Hangzhou. There exists documentation of research done on collaborative swarms of drones that can recognize targets, track them, and engage them. 

Beihang University, which is well known in the field of aerospace work, patented this year an explanation of how DeepSeek improves coordination of drones in situations where they have to deal with lightweight aircraft or other uncrewed aerial vehicles that are small and slow. 

These trends suggest the direction towards more autonomous weapon systems, even though the defence officials regularly declare the need to retain human control over weapon handling.  

The Global Competition on Military AI

The growing deployment of artificial intelligence in the defence sphere in China is associated with similar efforts being made by the United States and its allies.

Parallel to these changes, the U.S. military is devoting significant resources to autonomous platforms and has stipulated a plan to deploy multiple thousand AI-enabled uncrewed aircraft at the end of 2025, in particular, to counter the growing Chinese aerial capabilities.

Both performers also recognize the potential role of AI in future conflict relations; the main challenge is whether military forces will allow autonomous regimes to take the responsibility to make critical decisions. 

Even though the defence policymakers of China have claimed to have maintained human control over weapon systems, the boundaries between human and robot intelligence are becoming more blurred as artificial intelligence is carrying out more advanced tasks.

DeepSeek, Huawei, the Road Ahead

Nevertheless, Chinese defence companies like Shanxi 100 Trust Information Technology have been encouraging their use of localized components, and in particular the Ascend processing units of Huawei. Still, even research sources that are based on PLA-related research institutions report significant dependence on the Nvidia A100 architecture.

According to Reuters, the National University of Defence Technology NUDT and other affiliates of the University, which conduct military research, have registered more than thirty patents referencing Nvidia circuitry, and other documentation mentioning Huawei-derived processors. 

Such an uneven distribution of both foreign and domestic equipment demonstrates that China is still in the process of reaching the level of overall technological self-sufficiency.

Senior Colonel Zhu Qichao of NUDT admitted that the U.S. export controls have had an impact on their operation path, but emphasized that China is determined to close the current gap. On the other hand, Nvidia executive Rizzo declared that China already has a sufficient store of local chips to meet its existing military needs.

Assumption: The Oxford Analytica of the Algorithms of War

The Chinese doctrinal transformation on the premises of artificial intelligence is the beginning of the so-called algorithmic era of armed conflict, which is also the term used by various modern researchers before companies like DeepSeek, Huawei, and other local firms are driving the People’s Liberation Army to fast-track, cognitively advanced, and more autonomous operational stages.