Space War: China Unveils AI Satellite Swarms That Destroy Enemy Targets

Space war: While China unveils chilling AI satellite swarms that hunt down and destroy enemy targets, Russia is building new laser weapons to disable foreign satellites – What about the US? Europe?

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Chinese scientists said they could now launch hundreds of mini satellites – dubbed “cubesats” – from a large motherboard in space with deadly precision and speed.

Weighing in at 2.2lbs, these tiny satellites are so complex they can only be controlled by Artificial Intelligence (AI).

According to researchers, the complexity of a large scale space battle would be so immense that it’s beyond the human brain and even beyond some powerful algorithms.

The study, published in the peer-reviewed journal Chinese Space Science and Technology, said unlocking the right AI to control the motherboard and cubesats would have “strong economic and military value”.

It comes as China alleges Elon Musk’s SpaceX satellites came “dangerously close” to their new space station twice last year – and threatened to shoot them down.

Months later, Chinese and US satellites had a game of “geostationary orbit cat and mouse”, according to the report.

Zhang Jin, who led research into the deadly swarms, said the cubesats could be used to patrol and defend against attack from rouge forces in space using sophisticated AI algorithms that tells the drones when and how to attack.

Researchers have dubbed this the “multi-round greedy search” strategy and can instruct up to four motherboards to attack nine hostile targets in less than a day.

When put to the test, the algorithm was able instruct cubesats to destroy enemy targets in four minutes – 227 times faster than a generic algorithm which took more than three hours.

It comes as Beijing claimed it has developed an anti-satellite AI system that has mastered the art of deception.

According to the Morning Post, a trial of the lethal system found AI controlled three small satellites to approach and capture a high-value target and repeated the exercise thousands of times.

China has also launched an AI drone mothership able to operate and potentially launch military attacks autonomously in a chilling world-first.

According to the Chinese, the vessel is designed for marine research but already there have been fears it could be used to launch attacks on the US Navy and other adversaries.

The Zhu Hai Yun can hit top speeds of 20 miles per hour and can reportedly carry around 50 aerial, surface, and underwater drones.

Meanwhile, experts have warned drone warfare could soon look like something out of Star Wars.

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