AI Revolutionizes PLA Military Intelligence with Rapid Deployment Across Operations

The People’s Liberation Army (PLA) of China has adopted generative artificial intelligence (AI) to revolutionize its intelligence capabilities, marking a major step in modernizing military operations.

According to recent analyses, the PLA has shown a clear intent to integrate generative AI, leveraging advanced large language models (LLMs) to enhance tasks such as data processing, intelligence analysis, and decision-making support.

Generative AI: A Game-Changer for PLA Intelligence

Both proprietary and open-source LLMs from domestic developers like DeepSeek, Zhipu AI, and Alibaba Cloud, alongside foreign models from Meta and OpenAI, have reportedly been adapted to create specialized tools tailored for military intelligence.

These tools aim to process vast datasets, generate actionable intelligence products, and provide real-time recommendations, thereby increasing the speed, accuracy, and efficiency of operations while curbing costs.

Notably, the rapid adoption of DeepSeek’s models in early 2025 underscores the PLA’s aggressive push to deploy AI across its intelligence workflows, with defense contractors already claiming to have supplied customized open-source intelligence (OSINT) models based on this technology.

Despite the optimism surrounding generative AI, the PLA remains cautious about its limitations and inherent risks.

Technical challenges such as hallucination issues in LLMs, where models may produce inaccurate or fabricated outputs, pose significant hurdles to reliable intelligence analysis.

Additionally, the potential for ideological bias in AI models, especially those aligned with Chinese Communist Party (CCP) doctrines or trained on biased datasets, could compromise the objectivity of intelligence outputs.

Challenges and Strategic Implications

The PLA also faces counterintelligence risks, with concerns that foreign entities might exploit generative AI to create deepfakes or misleading content, degrading the value of open-source data.

Conversely, Chinese counterintelligence organizations could weaponize similar tactics to mislead adversaries, amplifying the strategic complexity of AI in global military landscapes.

Patent filings from December 2024 reveal the PLA’s innovative approaches, including systems designed to utilize diverse intelligence sources ranging from OSINT to signals intelligence (SIGINT) and geospatial intelligence (GEOINT) to train military-specific LLMs, enhancing every phase of the intelligence cycle from collection to decision-making.

According to Insikt Group Report, the implications of this technological shift are profound for both the PLA and Western counterparts.

For the PLA, successful integration hinges on rigorous experimentation and outcome assessment to ensure AI tools are applied effectively without skewing critical decision-making processes.

Failure to address these risks could lead to flawed intelligence, undermining operational outcomes.

For the West, the PLA’s advancements highlight pressing technology transfer challenges and the urgent need to counter the misuse of AI-generated disinformation.

As the PLA Daily and academic research from institutions like the Academy of Military Science indicate, while generative AI promises to revolutionize battlefield situational awareness and command efficiency, it remains a double-edged sword.

The PLA’s ongoing efforts to refine corpora, develop traceable AI outputs, and balance human-AI workflows reflect a strategic intent to harness this technology responsibly, positioning generative AI as a cornerstone of future informatized and intelligentized warfare, even as the full scope and effectiveness of its integration remain under scrutiny.

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