China is now using its own Ai model, DeepSeek, to help design its most advanced warplanes. Wang Yongqing, the chief designer at the Shenyang Aircraft Design Institute-a key player in China’s military aviation industry-confirmed that his team has started integrating AI technology into the development process for new fighter jets. Wang, who has worked at the institute for nearly 40 years says, “DeepSeek is already providing new ideas and methods for aerospace research, helping engineers tackle complex design challenges that would be difficult or time-consuming to solve by traditional means.”
One of the main advantages of using AI like DeepSeek is that it can manage boring and repetitive review tasks. This will free up researchers to focus on more important and innovative work. The technology is being used to analyze complex design problems and suggest solutions. This makes the research and development process more efficient and creative. Wang’s team is also studying how large language models-the same type of technology behind ChatGPT-can address practical, real-world engineering problems.
DeepSeek, based in Hangzhou, has quickly become a noticeable force in the global AI industry. The company is known for its cost-effective and high-performing AI models that compete with Western leaders like OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic. Its upcoming DeepSeek-R2 model, for example, uses a hybrid mixture-of-experts (MoE) architecture, which enables it to activate only certain parts of the model for specific tasks. This approach makes it highly efficient and reportedly up to 97% cheaper to operate than OpenAI’s GPT-4o, while still delivering strong performance.
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Beyond aerospace, DeepSeek’s AI technology is being explored for a wide range of military uses. According to technology white papers, DeepSeek can support command, communications, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) tasks. It can analyze huge amounts of intelligence data, help military commanders make decisions and even work with satellites, drones and radars to improve reconnaissance and targeting. Its capability to process and understand long, complex documents or datasets makes it valuable for both technical and strategic military applications.
DeepSeek’s models are also open-source, which means they can be freely downloaded and used by developers and organizations. This openness, combined with low operational costs and strong performance in areas like coding, math, and reasoning, has made DeepSeek the most downloaded free AI app on the US Apple App Store and a rising competitor in the global AI race.
In summary, China’s use of DeepSeek AI in warplane design marks a big step in combining artificial intelligence with advanced engineering. This move is not only smoothing the design process but also helping China compete more aggressively with Western countries in both AI and military technology. Looking ahead, the combination of AI like DeepSeek is expected to play a central role in the future of aerospace and defense innovation worldwide.
