India’s Military AI Gap and the Future of US-India Defense Cooperation

India’s Military AI Gap and the Future of US-India Defense Cooperation

India's​‍​‌‍​‍‌ Military AI Gap and the Future of US-India Defense Cooperation

India’s Military AI Gap and the Future of US-India While the United States and India have gradually increased their collaboration on defense issues, it is expected that a growing technological rift will cause future military collaboration to become tougher.

Artificial intelligence is now one of the key factors of modern warfare and both nations have very distinct levels of military AI development.

After a G7 meeting in June, US President Donald Trump pledged that America would assist India if the latter were to be under a threat of an attack. This was an indicator of the intimate political ties between the two capitals. Nevertheless, just because the two sides politically agree on something doesn't mean that they would be able to act on the field jointly with ease. The battlefield's effectiveness largely comes down to the compatibility of technologies. In the context of a military situation that is heavily reliant on the use of AI for various tasks that include gathering information, surveilling, identifying targets and making decisions, the availability and utilization of common technologies in both sides will be a deciding factor alongside conventional arms agreements.
The joint operations of the US and India have always been hampered by the lack of mutual equipment and the difference in operational doctrines.

The recent developments of AI in weapons are making this lack worse. The fact is that even though India is moving ahead with the development of its indigenous military AI capabilities, much of its systems are brand new or not widely deployed so that they lack practical experience when used against American ones. Different Levels of AI Integration From the recent examples of military campaigns, we can see the varying magnitudes between two nations. In April 2025, India called Operation Sindoor their first cross-border military operation that was AI-optimized at least in certain areas. It is said that the Indian forces used different AI tools, including AI-based systems, to analyze intelligence and help target several locations in the regions adjacent to Pakistan.
The use of AI by the United States on the contrary was done on a much bigger level during Operation Epic Fury against Iran. US forces were reported to have struck more than 13,000 targets over a period of 38 days. Almost 1,000 of these targets were addressed during the first 24 hours of the operation.

Though AI was used to some extent in both cases, the depth, speed, and magnitude of its employment were significantly different. The comparison points out that America has been the most experienced user in implementing AI on the battlefield.
How the US Has Maintained Its Military AI Edge
In the recent years, the US military has been making its AI operational a reality. For instance, by 2017, a very large amount of drone video was generated by the counter-ISIS operations at that point that intelligence gathering was becoming a problem.

It is known that the US Central Command received tens of thousands of hours per day of full-motion drone video that was hardly enough for human analysts to go through effectively.
In order to meet this challenge, the Pentagon launched Project Maven which used computer-vision algorithms that can find an object or activities in huge amounts of surveillance footage.
A while later, Project Maven became the Maven Smart System (MSS). This system is the result of merging data from various sources (such as video, satellite imagery, signals intelligence, or radar) that is then used to provide an expanded operational picture. The system even integrated large language models (LLMs) which can be used to retrieve information by commanders through natural language queries.

This is an example of the typical American approach where besides battlefield experience, the collaboration between military units, IT firms, AI experts, and raw battlefield data, lead to such technological developments that are continuously being refined. The use of AI on the battlefield as well as the training with different systems have also contributed considerably to the improvement of the military capabilities in ​‍​‌‍​‍‌America.

During​‍​‌‍​‍‌ peak usage, Pentagon reportedly processed billions of AI tokens/day through its AI systems during Operation Epic Fury. Such figures reflect the scale at which the US military has begun incorporating AI into operational activities.

India Is Still Building Its AI Architecture India is working on military AI systems, although many of them have not yet gone operational and are still in the development phase.
The Project Sanjay, which is meant to enhance combat surveillance, was in fact delivered to army troops gradually throughout 2025 in a staggered fashion. Another electronic-intelligence tool, called ECAS, apparently was used during Operation Sindoor even though it was subjected to certain modifications at that time.

As a matter of fact, India is also trying to create locally built military AI equipment. In fact, the Defence Research and Development Organisation has floated a tender calling for proposals from homegrown companies for the development of a large language model which will be used to spot cyber flaws. These kinds of moves indicate India wanting to become self-sufficient in AI instead of completely relying on foreign technology.

In the case of a military force with access to the right AI systems, they can sift through tons of information, highlight the important stuff and pull together information from different sources such as intelligence ones. Nevertheless, the fact that stands out here from the United States is the level of the operational readiness. United States forces' AI has been around for a long time and been tested in real combat; while Indian capabilities have only been rolled out to the front line relatively recently.

The Financial Dimension Military AI capabilities of the USA vs. Those of India is also explained, to a large degree, financially.

India started a defense AI program separate from the country's regular military programs, with total investment of about $12 million spread over five years. Military AI expenditure of India for such a time period is said to be about $50 million per year besides the mentioned funds.
On the other hand, the Pentagon has, for a single year, already been asking for money for the development of AI-based military systems and the sum is said to reach $13.4 billion. So, there is the huge gap between how much the two countries can spend on their military AI programs and it is going on to affect areas where investment matters a lot like research work, setting up of data centers, data mining, testing, procurement, and the expansion of the use of a technology which has worked well.

It also opens up the opportunity to the United States for better access to commercial AI developments in the field and integrating them with military systems.

AI Poses a Unique Interoperability Challenge
Throughout most of the time the US and India have been building up their defense inter-operability it has been the four things, viz. communications, logistics, intelligence sharing, and the military platforms that were the primary issues.
The two countries did not only sign several agreements like GSOMIA, LEMOA, COMCASA, and BECA with the Industrial Security Annex being the last in the list. Besides providing for secure communications, these agreements have also facilitated the establishment of logistics and exchanges of geospatial military data.

Still, AI brings about a different type of inter-operability difficulty.
Militaries of the modern times could find that AI is essential for them as it could be relied on to process the intelligence input and give recommendations of what to do. In fact, the allied forces, if they happen to have different AI systems, may interpret the battlefield situation completely differently despite both using the same input intelligence. This discrepancy could give rise to major problems while forces are trying to swap real-time information, coordinate intelligence or even move targets from one force to another.

Such a risk has already been pointed out by some other major military alliances and NATO is one of them that raised the question of AI's producing machine-generated intelligence which may contradict each other and thus, be a source of confusion unless the allied countries are given clear standards and procedures on how they are to share AI-enhanced intelligence with each other.
Similarly, the issue is expected to arise in military cooperation between the United States and India as well. However, it appears that the two nations have not agreed upon any framework for this issue up to the present time, as can be judged from information openly available ​‍​‌‍​‍‌sources.

AI​‍​‌‍​‍‌ Opens New Fronts in Data Exchange Cooperation
The focus of US-India defense interoperability in communications, logistics, intelligence sharing, and military platforms was on these elements for the majority of the two decades.
Both countries have concluded various foundation-level pacts like GSOMIA, LEMOA, COMCASA, BECA, and the Industrial Security Annex. These agreements paved the way for secure communication, logistical support, and the sharing of geospatial and militarly-related intelligence.
In contrast, AI represents an entirely different class of collaboration issue.
Nations' modern militaries are progressively utilizing AI to interpret information and recommend the right courses of action. Two Allied troops that use two dissimilar AI systems may have divergent understandings of the battlefield based on the nature of data processing in the AI that powers respective systems.

This may pose an issue when allies attempt to share their real-time battlefield understanding, pass on targets, etcetera, or collaborate based on one AI system’s intelligence against the one of a second.
Other countries with common defense policies are also raising alarms on that front. Some NATO officers have stated that AI systems could generate conflicting machine-derived interpretations unless allies adopt common guidelines and procedures for sharing AI-boosted intelligence.
The same problem could sooner or later affect US-India military ties. There is no indication in the public domain that the two countries have come up with an all-encompassing framework solely dealing with AI interoperability.

AI Dominance Constrains Collaborations
Overcoming this difference will not be as simple as Indian procurement of US AI capabilities.
The Government of India in recent years has stressed technological mastery and building a strong domestic AI base. Some Indian specialists have contended that processing sensitive military data on foreign-controlled servers poses the risk of espionage even in case the systems are closed.
The US on its part has good reasons for limiting who gets access to its advanced AI stuff. Washington won`t give free reins to the Americans’ most secretive military AI technologies to its partners.

The latest limits that involve highly sophisticated commercial AI models show how the national interest could determine access to advanced artificial intelligence technologies, even when it is not a direct military system.

Hence two countries will have to identify means of collaboration that do not result in either one of them giving up the total authority over sensitive AI infrastructure or data.
China Throws in another Wrinkle
Washington and Delhi will see the issue in a different light, too if China continues to invest in military AI.

CSET researchers roughly have calculated that spending by the Chinese military on AI could reach a level of approximately 1.6bn a year. Moreover, the PL Army itself has also tried out AI-assisted decision-making as well as AI-targeting technologies.
China’s strategy of developing AI-based weapons systems for offensive purposes also includes examining ways which could interfere or disrupt an enemy’s AI systems. The idea of ‘anti-AI’ tactics has been explored by China.

Counter-AI measures could threaten an AI-based system of a military in several places at once including its data, algorithms, and computing hardware. Methods such as the insertion of wrong data for the purposes of training an AI or misleading/fooling the AI could, in some situations, affect the reliability of the automated decision making process and the targeting.

In other words, in future, not only will the military competition between the countries involve making better AI but also they should be able to defend their systems against the attacks made on their reliability through the AI systems ​‍​‌‍​‍‌themselves.

Building​‍​‌‍​‍‌ Interoperability Before the Gap Widens
The United States and India have extensively worked on military interoperability through various means such as military exercises, communications protocols, intelligence sharing, and platform-sharing cooperation.

The next frontier is to look at AI together.
Being the fact that India still in the process of both implementing and rolling out many of their military AI abilities, this is the point at which they could actually start incorporating interoperability features as they develop.

Bilateral or multilateral existing military exercises might actually form real-world scenarios for American and Indian AI systems to demonstrate how they share information and deal with the same operational situation.

Issues such as data standards, intelligence sharing, machine-assisted interpretation, communication protocols, human-in-the-loop, cybersecurity, and the transfer of data between different AI architectures could be investigated by these exercises.

It shouldn't have been the main aim to produce similar products with the same technology after all, right?

That is how US and India might agree on setting up a common basis which their varying types of AI could use to communicate important information and work concurrently if and when needed.
A New Phase in the US-India Defense Partnership
The US-India defense cooperation has come a long way through weapons sales, signed cooperation pacts in the strategic military domain, common operational drills, and also intelligence-sharing.
Still, the changing warfare landscape due to AI brings out the new aspect of interoperability.
The key issue now is more about if the US and India machines can do the following together: understand, share, and act upon information with each other as their machines.

In contrast to the United States, whose machines have a long record of operational experience, India is just getting its military AI systems off the ground. It is a major difference in terms of the level of advancement. However, it is also an opportunity to figure out standards and common ways of things before there is a deep divergence of systems.
That means AI systems’ interoperability should be one of the top issues in future U.S.-India defense conversations.

Military exercises not only allow partners to identify technical deficiencies but also facilitate the development of solutions that can resolve those deficiencies.
As artificial intelligence becomes fully fused with the fabric of warfare, being able for the allied armed forces to have dialogue between their respective AI systems in battle may very well be as critical element as being equipped for face to face communication between the human ​‍​‌‍​‍‌forces.