AI Steered Planning and Targeting in Operation Sindoor, Army Says
The approach enabled high-confidence strikes, with one officer citing accuracy figures above 90% and plans to field a military large language model in the coming months.
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The Indian Army said on Monday that artificial intelligence aided planning and targeting for Operation Sindoor, the cross-border counterterror mission carried out in May after the Pahalgam attack.
Speaking to reporters in Delhi, Lt Gen Rajiv Kumar Sahni, Director General of Electronics and Mechanical Engineers and former DG Information Systems, said AI was used for review and intelligence analysis to prioritize resources.
He also pointed to the Army’s weather tool Anuman as a planning aid alongside satellite tracking and real-time feeds.
When asked whether AI was used to locate enemy infantry positions, Sahni said the military leveraged “reasonably assured models, satellite tracking systems, and feed which is given in real time” to achieve that objective.
Accounts of the mission’s tech stack include an electronic intelligence collation application and models trained on years of historical data to improve target selection.
The approach enabled high-confidence strikes, with one officer citing accuracy figures above 90% and plans to field a military large language model in the coming months.
The army has framed the push as part of a broader shift to faster, data-led decision-making.
It has designated 2024–25 as the “Year of Technology Absorption,” marking a rapid digital transformation within the force.
Modern warfare, experts said, is no longer defined solely by physical combat. It is hybrid, asymmetric, and increasingly contactless, where data and precision matter as much as boots on the ground.
India’s growing network of defense startups is now delivering indigenous technologies that are being deployed in live combat situations, including Operation Sindoor.
At the TiE Bangalore Matrix 2025 Global Summit, G. Satheesh Reddy, former secretary for defence R&D and ex-Defence Research and Development Organisation chairman, underscored this shift. “We are entering a new era of high-tech, contactless warfare. These are wars fought with indigenous weapons, proudly built by Indian startups,” he said.
The transformation is not just technological but economic. India’s defense exports reached ₹23,666 crore in FY 2024–25, a dramatic rise from previous years, with a target of ₹50,000 crore set for 2027–28.
“India is no longer just a buyer, we’re also becoming an exporter. The world is watching and acknowledging the technological prowess India now offers,” Reddy said.
