Britain is preparing to fund a cyber warfare unit—billed as an ‘army of hackers’—supported by artificial intelligence (AI), the Ministry of Defence (MoD) announced on Thursday, May 29th.
The MoD is now committed to spending more than £1 billion €1.19 billion) on a new force named Cyber and Electromagnetic Command. It will also oversee a separate £1 billion investment in upgraded existing targeting systems.
The decision is informed by months of perceived and genuine cyberattacks on Britain’s infrastructure. Many of these are suspected of coming from state actors, primarily Vladimir Putin’s Russia. Announcing the spending, Labour defence secretary John Healey proclaimed that “the keyboard has become a weapon of war.”
Analysts see the new emphasis on cyber conflict as a sign of Britain’s willingness to embark on offensive actions against geopolitical rivals using new technologies. Whereas the role of AI in business innovation is widely discussed, its military application remains a complex issue. If this makes Healey’s announcement seem something of an outlier, it’s worth noting that the recent EU-based SAFE borrowing announcement gives members the option to spend on AI.
While it is also claimed that the decision will fund the development of new technology to accelerate battlefield decision-making, this is unlikely to assuage long-standing fears that the British Army is not fit for purpose.
