Xi Tells PLA TO Build ‘Intelligent Military System’ As Beijing Leans Into Drones And AI

China’s Xi Jinping told the People’s Liberation Army this week to intensify the military application of artificial intelligence and unmanned systems, telling a Politburo study session that the force should build toward what the official readout called an “intelligent military system.” The directive landed days before the PLA’s ninety-ninth anniversary and squarely on the modernization targets Beijing has set for its centenary in 2027.

According to the state news agency Xinhua, as noted by Bloomberg, Xi told the session that the PLA should strengthen the military application of unmanned intelligent technologies, deepen the development of networked information systems, and gradually build an intelligent military. The report singles out autonomous and AI-enabled capability as the direction of travel and ties it to the “intelligentization” doctrine that has guided PLA planning for years. Xi paired the technology push with a renewed anti-corruption drive inside the military and the familiar insistence that the armed forces answer, always, to the Party.

The Race With Washington

Obviously this is about geopolitical dominance. Beijing’s public posture increasingly treats AI and unmanned platforms as the technologies that will reshape modern warfare, and Xi’s remarks land while the United States pours its own money into military AI and autonomous systems. Analysts who track the PLA describe intelligentization as a whole-of-nation effort, mobilizing not just the armed forces but the country’s scientific and industrial base, with the most ambitious version of the goal being to match or exceed US military capabilities by mid-century.

Meanwhile, reviews of Chinese research surfaced PLA-linked work using Western AI models, obtained through distillation, to train domestic defense tools, a reminder that the “intelligent military” Xi is describing is being assembled in part from the same frontier-model capabilities the West is trying to fence off through export controls.

It’s no secret that unmanned and AI-enabled systems are a key priority for Chinese military modernization, and it it comes as Washington’s own hawks are warning that permitting delays and data-center backlash could hand Beijing the edge in exactly this contest…

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