How AI is transforming defense, diplomacy, and dominance

At the launch of my previous book Hardware to Code, someone from the audience asked me a question that I’ve been sitting with ever since: “Can AI really take control of military defense systems?” I paused before answering—not because I didn’t know the facts, but because the weight of the question extends far beyond technology. We are entering a new era where software doesn’t just drive business—it is starting to shape power, sovereignty, and defense.

For years, we understood military systems as hardware-intensive: tanks, radars, missiles, and jets. The software was an accessory—something that sat behind the scenes helping with control systems or logistics. But what’s unfolding now is more fundamental. AI is no longer just a support layer; it’s evolving into the command layer. Countries are building real-time, AI-driven systems that can simulate threats, adjust responses, and even initiate countermeasures—all in milliseconds. These systems ingest data from satellites, field sensors, communication networks, and sometimes even open social feeds. They aren’t just observing—they are processing, learning, and acting.

This leads us to a bigger shift: the competition between nations is no longer about who has more weapons, but who has better intelligence—literally. Not just human intelligence, but machine intelligence. And in that sense, AI is now part of national defense strategy, not just defense technology. The ones who can build sovereign AI systems, protect their data, optimize reasoning engines, and integrate seamlessly across domains—land, air, cyber, and space—will be better positioned to control escalation or defuse it.

What excites me—and worries me equally—is how defense architectures are being reimagined as intelligent platforms. You see neural networks inside targeting systems, reinforcement learning applied to combat simulations, and generative AI being explored for wargaming and scenario planning. These aren't one-off experiments anymore. There are real investments going into digital twins of defense infrastructure, where simulated attacks can be launched, observed, and learned from in real time—without firing a single bullet. The very concept of ‘conflict’ is being rewritten in code.

We’ve gone from hardware to code, and now from code to intelligence. And with this transformation, the very nature of defense, deterrence, and diplomacy is being rewritten—not in treaties, but in training data and model weights. The challenge isn’t whether we can build intelligent systems. We already have. The challenge now is whether we can govern them, align them, and use them to preserve peace rather than provoke conflict.

That, to me, is the future we must design—intelligently.

(All views expressed are personal with AI assisted research)

Mukesh Sharma is the Sr VP & Region Head at Tech Mahindra Greater China

He is an Indian Institute of Management Bangalore Alumni and ex Maruti Suzuki India Limited. He is an accomplished visionary executive with over 25 years of international experience spanning India, Japan, and Greater China. Adept at orchestrating business transformation and driving strategic initiatives across diverse industries, including Automotive, Aerospace, Industrial, Manufacturing, Hitech and BFSI.

Twitter (X) : Mukesh_delhi

Mukesh Sharma, Author of “Hardware to Code” https://a.co/d/i4Yz2mr