It was announced after the second ministerial meeting of the Aukus military alliance, which was seen as very important to stop China’s maritime advance.
Top army officials say AI could make the Aukus buoys network in the Indo-Pacific better at finding enemy submarines and sending information to patrol planes.
Australia, the UK, and the US will work together on maritime drone exercises in 2024. They also want to add AI to different military systems, such as maritime patrol aircraft, according to top security officials from all three countries on Friday.
The news came after the second meeting of their Aukus military alliance’s ministers, which took place in Mountain View, California.
After the meeting, the US Secretary of Defence, Lloyd Austin, the UK’s Defence Secretary,
Grant Shapps, and Australia’s Defence Minister, Richard Marles, all said that the exercises would make it easier for all three countries to “jointly operate unmanned maritime systems and share and process maritime data.”
Austin said that the drills will help the allies get better at working together, build their skills, and “rapidly accelerate” the sophistication and scale of the autonomous maritime systems they can use and deploy.
The top defence leaders also said that AI-powered military technologies would make things better for things like a network of buoys run by Aukus nations in the Indo-Pacific. With their sensors, these buoys are meant to find enemy subs and send that information to patrol planes.
But there was no big news about the so-called “pillar one” of the Aukus pact at the meeting in California. This is the part of the pact that involves Australia buying three new nuclear-powered submarines with American military equipment on board each one.
The leaders of the three countries have said that the partnership is necessary to stop China from expanding its maritime power. Some people in the Indo-Pacific region say that Beijing’s claims to sovereignty over foreign waters have become more aggressive over the past few years.
