Indian army advances AI-enabled engineering support to ‘smartise kill chain’

The Indian Army on Wednesday conducted a focused seminar on Engineering Support for the Indian Army: Smartising the Kill Chain during the AI Impact Summit 2026 at Bharat Mandapam, bringing together senior military leadership, industry experts and academia to examine how AI can enhance equipment readiness through smartisation of legacy platforms, predictive maintenance and AI enabled logistics, thereby improving operational precision, velocity and mission effectiveness across the kill chain, the release said.

The keynote address was delivered by Lt Gen Rajiv Kumar Sahni, DG EME, who highlighted opportunities for industry to leverage AI to achieve sharper operational precision by converting large volumes of sensor data into actionable insights, predicting emerging threats, and upgrading legacy weapon systems into intelligent, data-enabled platforms.

He underscored the need to accelerate engineering support through advanced analytics and predictive interventions to energise operational logistics, and discussed the integration of AI into unmanned aerial systems, counter-unmanned aerial systems, and robotic platforms to secure a decisive edge in future warfare.

Discussions were structured around four core themes, including smartisation of legacy platforms through sensors, robust data pipelines, analytics and AI layers, AI enabled predictive and prescriptive maintenance to anticipate failures and optimise repair cycles, niche AI technologies such as digital twins, anomaly detection and secure edge analytics for deployment in operational environments, and stronger industry academia synergy to align research with military needs and deliver scalable, secure and mission ready AI solutions. Key speakers included Mr Biswajit Biswas from Tata Elxsi, Sreeram Ananthasayanam from Deloitte India, and Prof Sashikumaar Ganesan from the Indian Institute of Science, who shared insights on scalable AI architectures, governance frameworks, reliability modelling and applied AI for mission critical platforms.

The seminar examined how AI can reinforce each stage of the kill chain from detection and deployment to recovery and redeployment by embedding intelligence within engineering and logistics systems, ensuring equipment availability and operational readiness remain aligned with operational intent. It highlighted smartisation of in-service platforms through embedded sensors, AI-enabled condition monitoring and real-time analytics to enhance reliability without disproportionate capital expenditure, alongside AI-driven diagnostics and predictive alerts to reduce downtime, accelerate repair cycles and sustain operational tempo.

The deliberations further emphasised integration of equipment health dashboards into command decision loops to improve battle awareness through real time visibility of readiness across formations, a shift from reactive repairs to predictive engineering support through pre positioning of resources, optimised spares provisioning and advance deployment of technical support, AI enabled demand forecasting and inventory optimisation to streamline logistics and improve responsiveness, and real time tracing of spares and assets to strengthen accountability, transparency and faster turnaround of repairable components.

The seminar reaffirmed the Indian Army’s commitment to technological modernisation, indigenous innovation and enhanced operational efficacy in alignment with national AI priorities, and reiterated the resolve to strengthen engineering support architecture, smartise the kill chain and integrate scalable AI solutions through structured collaboration between industry and academia.