Ukraine is looking for ways to share battlefield data with allies, calling big data a key bargaining card in negotiating support from friendly countries, Reuters reports.
Ukraine’s Digitalization Minister Mykhailo Fedorov told Reuters that the data was invaluable to any country, adding that Ukraine was carefully considering who to share it with.
The vast amount of data is particularly important for training artificial intelligence to recognize patterns and make predictions. This is important for the growing defense sector around the world. While civilian data sets are commercially available, the largest war of the 21st century has given Ukraine an unparalleled set of combat data. This could allow Kiev to prove itself as an equal partner to Washington.
Since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukraine has amassed a vast amount of carefully entered combat statistics. And as drones are increasingly used, it also has millions of hours of aerial footage of the battlefield. Fedorov said he believes this is one of Ukraine’s cards in building mutually beneficial relationships with partners.
“The demand for the data is incredibly high, but at the moment we are forming policy
how to organise this process correctly,” Fedorov added.
Ukraine has also offered international defense companies the use of its land to test weapons. According to Fedorov, almost 1,000 applications have been received, and 50 different products are already on their way to Ukraine.
Ukraine is already using artificial intelligence to help drone pilots, including in attacks inside Russia. Computers can quickly review detailed reconnaissance maps to identify targets, while it would take a human dozens of hours.
Fedorov said Ukraine is using artificial intelligence technologies from U.S. data analytics company Palantir for a variety of purposes. Artificial intelligence is not always used on the battlefield – with its help, Ukrainians also analyze the best places to build underground schools, as well as evaluate where to carry out demining measures first.
Currently, between 80% and 90% of targets on the battlefield are destroyed with the help of drones, and the Ukrainian army has introduced a video game-like rating system, which has allowed for more accurate data collection on destroyed targets and other nuances relevant to warfare.
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