The New Military-Industrial Complex of Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence is transforming the traditional military-industrial complex into a new strategic ecosystem where innovation, finance, and warfare converge. Unlike the Cold War model—centred on state-owned arsenals and vertically integrated defence contractors—the new structure operates as a distributed network that merges private capital, technological entrepreneurship, and government demand. Artificial intelligence functions as the connective tissue of this ecosystem, linking research, production, and command functions through data. The result is a defence economy in which knowledge and computation, rather than steel or oil, form the critical resources of power. Governments are no longer the sole drivers of technological advancement; they are now partners and regulators in a system dominated by private entities that design, fund, and operationalise technologies with direct military relevance. This transformation redefines the very nature of strategic autonomy and shifts the balance of influence from public bureaucracies to hybrid networks of technology and capital.