Experts See Risk and Reward to Integrating AI in Nuclear Weapons

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Chinese experts see potential in the ability of cyberattacks enabled by artificial intelligence (AI) to disrupt nuclear infrastructure and increase the pressure to use nuclear weapons in a crisis.

The development of early warning capabilities toward a launch-on-warning posture increases Beijing’s impetus to integrate AI into data processing to inform decisions over nuclear use.

There is significant ongoing debate on the threats AI-enabled conventional threats pose to the People’s Liberation Army’s nuclear forces, the effectiveness of remote-sensing in undersea warfare, and the vulnerabilities of using AI to process early warning data and generate options for decision-makers to respond to nuclear threats.

In April 2025, Zhang Gaosheng (张高胜), a researcher at the China Institute of International Studies, penned an article in The Paper pinpointing several mechanisms in which the integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into nuclear command, control, and communications (NC3) systems will increase the risk of nuclear escalation (The Paper, April 11). In particular, as AI technologies become increasingly embedded in critical nuclear infrastructure, the potential for miscalculation, system vulnerabilities, and unintended escalation grows more acute. It is, therefore, critical to understand how the PRC plans to integrate AI into its nuclear strategy.

Although Biden and Xi previously agreed on the need to maintain human control over the decision to use nuclear weapons, the decision to integrate AI into nuclear command, control, and communications NC3 is far more complex than the decision to maintain a human-in-the-loop (Ministry of Foreign Affairs, November 17, 2024). From processing early-warning data to autonomous targeting, there are numerous ways of integrating AI into NC3 while maintaining people within the decision-making process. As the performance of AI models rapidly improves, Chinese experts have identified opportunities to incorporate AI in NC3. They have also discussed the weaknesses of doing so and the risks AI may pose to the survivability of its nuclear forces.