Artificial intelligence algorithms developed under the AUKUS pact have not yet been deployed on the Royal Air Force’s P-8 Poseidon maritime patrol aircraft, with the software planned to be flown in the future while the United Kingdom draws on data and operational learnings from its partners’ deployments in the meantime, the Ministry of Defence has told Parliament.
The Minister for Defence Readiness and Industry, Luke Pollard, confirmed the position on Wednesday in a written answer to the Conservative MP for Huntingdon, Ben Obese-Jecty, who had asked, following an earlier answer on AUKUS and artificial intelligence, whether AI had been deployed on RAF P-8 aircraft to date.
Pollard told MPs that “the AI algorithms in question were developed trilaterally” using expertise across all three AUKUS nations, and that “the algorithms are planned to be flown on our P8 aircraft in the future”.
In the meantime, Pollard said, the United Kingdom was “currently benefitting from access to data, insights and operational learnings” generated through partner deployment of the capabilities. The work, he added, formed part of “a broader programme to ensure interoperability across all three nations” and to maximise the operational benefits of AUKUS-developed technologies as they are brought into service.
The algorithms sit under Pillar 2 of the AUKUS agreement between Australia, the United Kingdom and the United States, the strand of the pact covering advanced capabilities such as artificial intelligence, autonomy, hypersonics and undersea warfare, which runs alongside the better-known Pillar 1 programme to deliver nuclear-powered attack submarines to Australia.
One of the earliest publicised Pillar 2 projects involved the trilateral development and trialling of AI algorithms for processing sonobuoy data on P-8A maritime patrol aircraft, with the three nations flying shared software designed to help operators sift acoustic returns and find submarines faster.
The Royal Air Force operates nine P-8A Poseidon aircraft from RAF Lossiemouth in Moray, where the fleet carries the burden of British anti-submarine patrol over the North Atlantic and the approaches to the United Kingdom, including the protection of the nuclear deterrent and the tracking of Russian submarine activity in the high north. Australia and the United States operate larger P-8 fleets of their own, and the common airframe across the three AUKUS partners has made the Poseidon a natural early carrier for trilaterally developed software.
Honestly working in tech and with AI, most leaders don’t meaningfully understand its possibilities and limits for MOST businesses let alone the top 5 tech companies… so this is astute in my humble opinion
Truthfully models like Claude have transformed in the last 9 months from Limited’s useful to useful for somethings to a reasonable degree of confidence.
However, the list of things that it is laughably bad at is very, very long.
The big problem us that the intelligent human who understands the subject and can juggle multiple cowork windows is fundamental to getting benefit out of AI.
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TBH this is the kind of niche thing that AI is good at, sifting through the acoustic returns from sonarbuoys looking for submarines. LLMs just do pattern-matching extremely well, so looking for submarines, or tumours in breast-scans, etc, etc are all obvious use-cases.
But the ability to pattern-match, while sometimes providing a good simulation, is not actual intelligence. Anyone that thinks otherwise either doesn’t understand LLMs, or is profiting from inflating the AI bubble.
Hate seeing the P8s all lined up like that.
With no GBAD and with limited fighter jets it’s not the best.
Well you’d hope/assume in TTTW the fleet would disperse around the airfield or to Kinloss up the road, where there are lots of dispersals.
My concern is that despite the spin from the RAF, dispersal is effectively lip service. Do the people exist to enable it?
My fear is a Ukraine style attack from the A road nearby, just before commencement of hostilities. We all saw what happened to Russian Long Range Aviation.
At least dispersal makes that task a tad harder.
GBAD? We have Rapid Sentry, supported by ORCUS. My own belief is that barely any are available to cover the RAF MOBs, in the numbers actually required with the people to operate them.
Might be worth to keep some key capabilities in places like the Ascension Island, such a P8 or two that can then be recalled if needed, but relatively safe from drone attack.
Do they even have the range to fly back from Wideawake?
Superbly, they cannot be refuelled by Voyager, no guarantee a USAF aircraft will be available.
Neither can E7, and other types.
Not ideal.
Not being able to provide air to air refueling in a war situation would he a critical problem, when we have so few airframes. Zero chance 24/7 coverage would be able to be maintained for very long.
Assuming open source information is correct then it just about has the range to fly direct to Scotland. But would need extra fuel to make it a safe flight.
And get blown up as soon as it lands! The idea reminded me of Iraq burying their assets to protect and hide them!
I get the idea mate, somewhere really remote, but it then defeats the object of having them! They’re needed in the GIUK North Atlantic area, so somewhere more remote in the British Isles might have to do?
Flee to Ireland?!
I would see it more as a rolling reserve base, rather than an operational location so if all our UK assets are destroyed in a surprise attack, we still have something.
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It’s not too hard to disperse 737 NG’s in the UK. There are several dozens air fields set up to handle them already 😀
But one wonders how useful dispersal is these days as opposed to hardened aircraft shelters, electronic counter measure and missile defence systems. If an enemy can deploy hundreds of weapons to many locations and can track with satellites and target with ballistic missile then dispersion can loose its effectiveness.
Difficult to defend something this size of a 737 with hardened shelters though.
If we just painted them in Ryan Air livery we could hide them all over Europe and no one could find them 😀
Yes, plenty of airfields.
I was more concerned with the ground crews, those to service the avionics, those to provide Force Protection, those to rearm. Do they exist? As much of the RAF Station services are now civilianised.
We have no HAS to fit this size aircraft.
Good one with the livery!
Probably not in the numbers required but the avionics and engines should be no problem.
Serious question. Does Russia have the capability to launch drones in numbers, from Russian locations with the range, accuracy and survivability to hit a target like Lossiemouth with accuracy? And survive the multiple layers of defence across NATO nations and our own QRA and our force protection measures and those USAF F35s and strike Eagles
Hi mate.
Not an area I have any deep knowledge on. From what I read, they can throw thousands, especially if they shift launch sites forward to Belorussia. Some would always get through.
I think it dangerous to underestimate enemies mate?
And then add BM and Cruise missiles.
Even if the majority are shot down, the questions remain:
Why risk it?
Why line up in neat lines making a bigger target?
And you’ll note, I did not refer to such an attack in my original post above, but from within or near or shore in a preemptive manner. I bet the Russians thought their long range aviation safe until Ukraine literally attacked it from trucks beyond the wire?
9/11 is another example. So powerful, the most powerful military seen, undone by a few madmen with box cutters from within. There were hardly any aircraft available on the US eastern coast to intervene, and those that did did not arrive in time.
We have open borders, we have illegals entering left right and centre. I have confidence that HMG has no clue just how many are here, Boris Johnson suggested as such when he was PM.
The border with Ireland is open.
Who is to say Russian Drones are not here already, waiting in some cache for use if needed.
Launched from a lorry.
Can you guarantee that is not the case mate?
I’d rather not take the risk.
The irony is, I used to fully support the government stance that there was no need for GBAD in the UK, given our expeditionary stance, the DIS assessment of the threat being low, and geographical location.
Having seen the Russian use of Drones and missiles in Ukraine and how weak our borders are, I have changed my mind, I support a purchase of CUAS and more GBAD missiles for UK home defence.
Here is another one for you, different subject but similar. Have you read of the suggested results of a tanker sailing down the Thames Estuary releasing a Chemical or biological aerosol into the air? And its spread into central London? How do you stop it? How many hundreds of Russian tankers sail past the UK yearly. One was off Lossi a few years ago I recall, sheltering from a storm.
Porton Down itself has dropped this shit in very small doses before over British towns and on the London Underground to monitor potential spread, all kept secret at the time.
Now compare to the repeated Drone incursions in Europe over airports, which some ENATO intelligence agencies linked to Russian shadow fleet tankers.
No mate, I think we are wide open, regardless of how many missiles and Drones NATO might or might not take down crossing Europe to reach us.
That’s not really answering my original question. Can Russia attack the UK with drones from Russia with accuracy? I’m going to stick my neck out and say currently they can’t. There record of capability in Ukraine is hardly cutting edge. It’s not about us underestimating them, but also having a little sense of what they can actually do.
Drones from Russia unlikely.
Cruise missile attack from subs.
I’d argue that’s a huge risk and I have no confidence were defended against it when I see all astutes parked up.
Then I see free Palestine at Brize and can’t help but think Russia also saw that and already has the people in place to do it if needs be.
But its not going to be our 5 Astutes against Russia. The political implications for Russia even thinking about an attack on the UK are enormous. It would be a full scale attack against the whole of NATO.And what would Russia’s aims be? Invasion? Or just a cheeky pop at us. Russian military performance in Ukraine has been abysmal. 5 years and nothing gained. They are still just hitting random tower blocks. Sub launched cruise missiles, what have they achieved? We need to up our game considerably. But I think that by magic Russia can suddenly have the capability to do us serious harm. I’m not so sure. It can’t beat its neighbour that didn’t even have a Navy. Grey zone warfare is a bigger threat from Russia. And our security and intelligence services will be doing a fantastic job.
One hypothetical.
Lets take China and Russia on their word of their “no limits” partnership.
China gets aggressive in South China sea, could be Taiwan, could just be a wider get out of our back yard to USA in a non direct move on Taiwan. USA gets pulled into that arena and it turns into a shooting war at sea.
China asks Russia to disable as many european nato assets as possible in order to tie us up in Europe and destroy anything useful we could send (in reality our most useful assets would be astutes in south china sea).
I would argue that if we were to hit a Russian base that we would be in danger of a nuclear response from Russia, but give how we have behaved since the cold war if I was Russia I think I could get away with a conventional attack on the UK in such a scenaria, UK would dither and not really know what to do and USA would be pre occupied with China situation.
Realistically, what would we be able to do if Russia sneaked some submarines out into the atlantic loaded with cruise missiles prior to the commencement of hostilities.
I have zero confidence that the GIUK gap is presently under control given how few functional assets we have and frankly our Navy being alongside and in near constant refit makes it a sitting duck. Air force perhaps not quite as bad but its very concentrated and as we saw at Brize security is a joke.
Just beacuase Russia hasnt made significant territorial advances in Ukraine of late does not mean the UK is protected against an attack against its military assets.
Jim,
Umm … er … although obviously presented as an amusing aside, in the current geopolitical environment, it probably should be explicitly stated that disguising military aircraft (including E-7s/P-8As) in civilian livery would contravene the Hague Regulations under the legal doctrine of perfidy, and would constitute a war crime. Not concerned re conduct/planning of MoD mandarins, however, the potential machinations of certain political appointees of another NATO member … 🤔😉😱
Good point 😀
We better get on with painting Stirling Castle then… 😁😁😁
Oh, come on! Ryanair? BA, surely, fly the flag? Oh, hang on, BA is Spanish now…
True, but the concept of a pre-emptive strike is not exactly new.
i know , its just asking for it.
Australia is building a great navy, UK if anything could learn from them..
Yes, perhaps we could copy there frigates and nuclear submarines 🤔
👍
Lol… Upside down Thinking in “Inverted Commas”.
I think that dispersal is smoke and mirrors to an extent, to avoid committing proper funds to actual defences. The Russians, (and maybe Chinese/Iranians) especially in the future, will have the drone and missile capabilities to target many UK airfields with some degree of saturation simultaneously. Obviously some level of dispersion, such as not having 7 P-8 lined up in a row is a good idea. But I would rather see 3/4 key RAF bases that encompass all assets, but also have a reinforced CAMM ER/MR battery, 3/4 CIWS systems, and a genuinely healthy complement of EW and C-UAS with all aircraft under hardened sheltered – than 12-15 dispersed bases with virtually no protection. In boxing terms, HMG needs to realise that we ought to have a much tighter guard up before we can think about giving our enemies a stiff jab, or we’re open to a humiliating straight right hand down the pipe in return.
Very much agree.
I think your right Charlie, however according to RUSI hardened aircraft shelters and also dummy aircraft shelters are the most effective techniques. Modern ballistic and hypersonic weapons can get by almost any defence but their warheads are tiny and their accuracy is limited compared to cruise missiles. Protected aircraft shelters are a real barrier to such weapons. These weapons are also very expensive so having a large number of dummy shelters forces an enemy to expend large numbers of very expensive weapons on empty sheds.
This can be where dispersal has an edge over using heavily defended sites. The Combination of Sky Sabre, Rapid sentry and ORCUS gives the UK one of the best defensive systems in the world against low flying drones and cruise missiles. Indeed Poland was so impressed with the system guarding its airbases that it spent billions ordering its own version. The UK has enough systems to guard a handful of bases but not much else if the UK mainland was threatened. The only ballistic missile threat Russia could pose is probably Oreshnik which would be little use against our fighters that are largely under cover but would be devastating on for instance our P8’s out in the open.
But by in large we have enough systems to defend UK airbases in a war but not much else and the Russian ballistic missile threat is probably best countered by hardening aircraft shelters and dispersal for larger planes even just dispersing them around the airbase would help.
We just need to buy more of what we already have and by some ABM capable systems like Arrow 3 and SAMP/T to complicate the defence picture for Russian ballistic missiles.
I’d be curious to know how much a HAS would cost in this day and age, I believe most or all were paid for by NATO back in the day.
And that’s the conventional sized ones. Not seen any designed to protect a single larger aircraft, Interested to know if they even exist.
Very much one for the extra 1.5%, if fantasy land became reality.
As far as I can tell hardened aircraft shelters don’t exist for large aircraft. The cost of building such a massive structure is prohibitively expensive.
However there are temporary shelters which are pretty cheap and transportable. The US was considering using these in the Iran war. While they can’t keep out ballistic missiles they can keep out smaller drones but most importantly they can hide large aircraft from satellites.
They csn keep Drones out? Hmmm, interesting. I can see our RAF Stations now, looking like a fairground with giant marquees everywhere. Which ones have the planes in? 🤔
The issue will come down to deciding what to actually protect at the moment as there isn’t enough systems for all Army, Navy, RAF and wider MOD sites, let alone critical civilian infrastructure.
Need to be buying a lot more of these systems.
I have it on good authority that the PM will be appearing for a major announcement in Swindon tomorrow, defence related
Well the rumour was that DIP would be published Friday, which caused uproar in Parliament as it’s not sitting tomorrow.
Ah, the Drone capital of Britain.
Yes, I’ve read companies being asked to bring their products for the back drop in this set piece spectacular.
Remember to de louse after a word that man says regards Defence.
Watch out for what is taken away with one hand as Starmer gives out the good news with the other.
I’d LOVE it if the CDS resigned if the DIP is the washout many are expecting. None have ever had the guts, hopefully it would bring them down if other NATO countries wade in with their own comments.
Apparently there is some sort of NATO league table comparing nations rearming rhetoric to the reality, and we’re second from bottom on it.
DM,
Compliments in order re a remarkably prescient post, though not entirely accurate — Sec. of Defence rather than CDS! Unfortunately, probably indicative of a disappointing DIP final product. Eventually, another HMG will revisit the issue, hopefully, before hostilities commence.
👍 😞
Hopefully this AI will not involve the fruitcakes at Palantir…
Are they the company involved in wanting to access the national NHS medical records?
Anongst other things.
Their CEO recently published a corporate manifesto that reads like the work of Dr Strangelove or a Bond villain.
The company’s founder, Peter Thiel, is JD Vance’s puppetmaster and major donor to MAGA. But his big obsession is using whatever power he can wield to defeat the AntiChrist – his identification of who/was is the Antichrist varying from week to week.
😳 Does he/it even exist???
Oh he’s previously identified everything from the United Nations to the current Pope as being the Antichrist. He’s not taking chances so wants to topple anything that might be the Antichrist.
Oh and Palantir was the company that identified that Iranian girls school as a target to bomb. Twice.
Ok. Utter fruitbat.
The article I read on Palantir and the medical records was sinister as well, if true.
But so is the thought of China accessing them. Apparently we shot ourselves in the foot again selling some AI system for pittance that’s now a leader, gobbled up by Google.
Not an area I have any real knowledge in.
Dangerous, powerful fruitbat, which is worse.
DeepMind was a private company. It’s getting rather socialist when you interfere in the free-market. But the founder of DeepMind insisted the company stay based in London and not be relocated to California. Of course there are some politicians in this country that wouldn’t be keen on DeepMind founders, Demis Hassabis and Mustafa Suleyman even being in the U.K. in the first-place.
Ah, that was it, Deep Mind.
Healey resigns over insufficient DIP spending!
bbc.co.uk/news/live/cgqeg09p3p1t
I am both glad he has had the backbone to follow through and worried at what this means for the DIP. I wonder if the CDS will follow suit.
No need for the CDS to resign, the Defence Ministers resignation should be powerful enough (and we want to retain as much military competence as possible).
I think we probably all knew the DIP would be the dampest of damp squibs. Credit where it is due to Healey for falling on his sword instead of attempting to sell us on a weak and ineffectual plan, not often you see politicians acting on principle instead of on what’s best for their careers.
Surely this is now it for Starmer and Reeves. All the big talk on defence, and it’s not even that they aren’t interested in following through on it – they actively do not want to. Total humiliation for them, the party, and whatever is left of this country’s image
While skeptical, I was willing to give them the benefit of the doubt until it was published as I’d rather not damage myself by becoming a bitter cynic like many on here.
I wonder if there’ll be some desperate redrafting going on overnight tonight, trying to scrabble together some more money for defence. I can’t think of Labour being able to recover from this in any other way.
The problem of the future funding of the DIP hasn’t gone away even if it means ultimately an end to Starmer who will try and put a positive gloss on the resignation and try and sell a reduced DIP to his NATO colleagues later in the year with a promise of more in later years. The US are already sceptical of UK intentions for future funding of Defence and according to recent reports would not look kindly on a reduction below £18M. All of this is eating up more time and pushing back future contracts. According to my recollections and recent utterances Burnham, the likely replacement for Starmer, is even more left leaning than Starmer so its difficult to see him investing more in Defence. If the whole edifice collapses and we have a GE this year would anyone believe the likely winner?