Israel intends to use its military prowess to become a “superpower” in Artificial Intelligence (TN)the secretary general of the Ministry of Defense said today, predicting developments in autonomous warfare and optimized combat decision-making.

Steps to take advantage of rapid advances in AI include the creation of a specialized military robotics agency at the ministry, and a record budget for related research and development this year, the retired general said. Eyal Zamir.

“There are those who see IT as the next revolution in the form of battlefield warfare,” Zamir told the Herzliya Conference, an annual international security forum.

Name him Generative Pre-trained Transformer (GPT) and Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) as the disciplines of deep learning discussed by civilian IT industries that could ultimately have military applications.

These, Zamir said, potentially include “the ability of a platform to strike in swarms or combat systems to operate independently, the ability to merge data and make decisions quickly, at a scale greater than ever before.”

The ministry declined to give specific numbers for TN funding.

The Israeli military has revealed some of the autonomous systems already in development. In 2021, he said robotic surveillance jeeps would aid border patrols with Gaza Strip.

This month, the state Israel Aerospace Industries unveiled an autonomous intelligence-gathering submarine which it said has already logged “thousands of hours” in operations.

Eyal attributed Israel’s achievements in cyber warfare — widely believed to have been used against Iranian nuclear facilities — to “correct and timely discernment of the defense, economic, national and international dimensions.”

Likewise, he said, “our mission is to turn the State of Israel into a superpower in TN and to be at the heart of a very limited number of world powers that are in this club.”