Painfully slow progress, defence innovation needs urgent acceleration, says DCAS Bharti

Deputy Chief of Air Staff Air Marshal Awadhesh Kumar Bharti flagged concerns over the “painfully slow” transition from concept to operationalisation, calling for a rapid acceleration of innovation in research, development, infrastructure, and the overall environment.

During his address at the Aero Tech India 2025, Bharti said India requires “leapfrogging” to attain strategic autonomy in critical technologies. “To win future wars, there is no doubt that indigenisation is the way ahead. Our global partners may not always be able to share niche and critical technology with us. What we need is leapfrogging, which largely will have to be done on our own,” he said.

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“We need to attain strategic autonomy in critical technologies from secure chips to communication systems to hypersonics to airborne platforms to space-based assets,” he went on to add.

Speaking about indigenisation, Bharti said it is the key to future capabilities. “Considerable work is going on, there is no doubt. However, the progress from conceptualisation to operationalisation is painfully slow, and that is our pain point. And to be able to achieve this accelerated pace of innovation in the country, research and development, environment and infrastructure have to see a revolution,” he said.

The Deputy Chief of Air Staff stated that future conflicts will span a wide spectrum, ranging from low-cost solutions such as drones and unmanned systems to high-tech platforms where humans and AI operate together in combat. “Once the kinetic action starts, future conflicts will be fought at the entire end of the spectrum. And when I say the entire end of the spectrum, it is not only that they will be high tech, tanks, aircraft or ships. It will be fought even at the lower end with low-tech, low-capital solutions. So at one extreme would be low-cost mass saturation, characterised by usage of drones and other unmanned systems,” he said.

“The other extreme would be high-cost equipment, niche technologies, precise with a large weight of attack, characterised by the usage of sixth-generation technologies. Future warfare will be about collaboration between humans and machines, robots and autonomous systems integrated with AI would be fighting side by side with humans,” he added.