China’s military AI logistics: peacetime gains, wartime vulnerabilities

(Gerald Mako – ASPI The Strategist) For decades, Chinese military planners have viewed logistics as the decisive factor in any campaign against Taiwan and across the broader Indo-Pacific. Sustaining large-scale operations across the strait would require moving and supplying forces under intense pressure, making logistics both a critical vulnerability and a priority for reform. China is now placing a big bet that artificial intelligence offers the solution. The Chinese military is incorporating AI into its logistics systems to support what it calls ‘intelligentised warfare’. AI tools promise to improve demand forecasting, routing and the allocation of supplies. The armed forces are also applying AI to predictive maintenance, allowing logistics units to anticipate failures and schedule repairs well before breakdowns occur. Established in 2016 as part of Chinese military reforms, the Joint Logistic Support Force serves as the Chinese army’s centralised logistics command, coordinating support across all services. It manages theatre‑level support centres and depots while drawing data from military units, bases and civilian contractors to develop cross‑theatre sustainment plans. China refers to this as ‘smart joint logistics’, with the force fusing data from military and civilian systems into unified support plans across theatres. Recent work has focused on combining information systems with AI applications to support more automated planning processes. – China’s military AI logistics: peacetime gains, wartime vulnerabilities | The Strategist