Israel aims to capitalize on its technological expertise to become an artificial intelligence “superpower” in the military, the Defense Ministry’s director-general said on Monday, predicting advances in autonomous technology and easier decision-making in combat, Reuters and news report

Moves to capitalize on the rapid development of artificial intelligence include the creation of a special military robotics organization within the ministry and a record budget for related research and development this year, according to retired army general Eyal Zamir.

“There are those who see artificial intelligence as the next revolution in changing the face of warfare on the battlefield,” Zamir said at the Herzliya Conference, an annual international security forum.

He named GPT (Generative Pre-Trained Transformer) and AGI (Artificial General Intelligence) as areas of deep learning that the civilian AI industry is working on that may eventually have military applications.

This, Zamir said, could include “the ability of platforms to strike in swarms or combat systems to operate independently, fusing data and assisting in rapid decision-making on a larger scale than we’ve ever seen.”

The ministry declined to provide figures on AI funding.

The Israeli military opened the curtain on some already deployed autonomous systems. In 2021, he said, robotic surveillance jeeps will help patrol the border of the Gaza Strip.

This month, state-owned Israel Aerospace Industries unveiled an autonomous intelligence-gathering submarine that it says has already logged “thousands of hours.”

Eyal attributed Israel’s achievements in cyber warfare, which is believed to have been used against Iran’s nuclear facilities, to the correct and timely recognition of the defense, economic, national and international dimensions.”

Likewise, he said, “our mission is to transform the State of Israel into an AI superpower and be at the forefront of the very limited number of world powers that are in that club.”