At the NDTV Defence Summit in New Delhi, Lt Gen Raj Shukla, now a member of the Union Public Service Commission, urged the Indian Army to treat AI‑powered drone warfare as a new epoch of national security.
He cited Ukraine's leap from 10,000 to 20,000 daily drone sorties after shifting to algorithmic warfare, and warned that China already fielded 1 billion armed drones, a figure that eclipses the United States' 22,000 daily operations under its Drone Dominance Initiative.
Shukla stressed that the shift from human‑in‑the‑loop to algorithmic decision‑making is already underway, with autonomous targeting systems learning from recursive data, and that India must enact structural reforms before the next wave of AI drone swarms arrives.
The government, which has yet to publish a dedicated AI drone policy, is expected to convene an inter‑departmental task force by early 2027, with a draft framework slated for parliamentary debate in March.
For soldiers stationed in Rajasthan, the call has sparked debate; one 35‑year‑old infantry officer, Ajay Kumar, said he fears the new drones could change battlefield dynamics and endanger civilian villages.