Chinese Military-funded Researchers Develop AI Warship Electrical Layout in Record Time

A Chinese military-funded research team has created an artificial intelligence (AI) system that can design the electrical layout of a warship with remarkable speed and accuracy.

According to the South China Morning Post, the AI designer completed the task in one day when it would have taken humans nearly a year to complete, even with the most advanced computer tools available!

The research team from the China Ship Design and Research Centre published their findings on Feb. 27 in the Chinese-language journal Computer Integrated Manufacturing Systems.

Designing Warships 300x Faster

Modern warship electrical layout design is a complex and time-consuming process that frequently involves proofing errors that can take many hours to discover.

It is not easy to design a warship. Webb Institute explains that naval architects use advanced engineering tools to evaluate the vessels' stability and maneuverability, the structures required to support the forces they will encounter, and the power necessary to propel them through the waves.

Meanwhile, the addition of military equipment and weapons found on modern-day warships adds to the complexity of the task.

However, when the researchers tested the AI designer with over 400 challenging tasks, it achieved 100% accuracy. The team stated that the AI designer was "ready for engineering applications" in China's shipbuilding industry, which would speed up the production of warships in its shipyards.

Humans took 300 times longer to complete the same tasks.

China Expanding Naval Fleet

Some nations, particularly the United States, are concerned about China's growing ability to produce warships.

SCMP also reported that US Navy Secretary Carlos Del Toro warned that China has 13 shipyards for warship production, with "one shipyard [having] more capacity than all of our shipyards combined."

China intends to have over 400 warships by 2025, roughly a third more than the US fleet. The Chinese army has focused on replacing its earlier generations of platforms with limited capabilities in favor of larger, more modern multi-role combatants, according to a report from the Pentagon.

The Chinese army is becoming a more modern and adaptable force on the seas. China's PLA fleet comprises modern multi-role platforms equipped with cutting-edge anti-ship, anti-air, and anti-submarine weapons and sensors as of 2021.

The AI Warship Designer

According to Luo Wei, the senior engineer in charge of the research team, the design was the main factor slowing down production rather than shipyard delays.

The military supported the AI designer project to improve efficiency by shortening the time-consuming process of design changes when the navy modified the requirements for a new ship.

The AI designer project used a database of Chinese ship design knowledge and experience from previous decades to significantly reduce the computing resources needed and eliminate errors.

While the AI designer's effectiveness has only been demonstrated for electrical system layout, the researchers believe it could be easily used with a small computer system.

The team compared their AI designer to those developed by large technology firms such as Google to accelerate computer chip design, noting significant differences.

Unlike AI chip design, which can make a few mistakes, there is no room for error in warship design.

Furthermore, an AI chip designer can create many products, which means that a large amount of computing resources can be allocated to train it while the company still makes a profit.

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