North Korea test-launches new AI-equipped torpedo... “Heralding a major change”

[Financial News] North Korea announced that it had successfully test-launched a new ultra-high-speed precision-guided torpedo, ‘Jam-2.0,’ incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) technology. Following recent tests of submarine-launched cruise missiles and the commissioning of a new destroyer, it appears to be accelerating the modernization of its naval weapons systems.
According to the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) on the 17th, North Korea’s Academy of National Defense Science, Missile General Bureau, and Torpedo Weapons Research Bureau conducted an underwater live-fire test of the new torpedo on the 15th to verify its technical performance.
North Korea said it had applied AI technology to the torpedo’s target search and guidance processes. It also claimed to have verified the performance of propulsion-efficiency improvements developed through 180 tests over the past five years, as well as that of the rocket propulsion system. However, it did not disclose the torpedo’s specific specifications.
KCNA described the test as a routine defense science research activity aimed at upgrading weapons systems. It said that officials in the defense science sector who watched the test assessed it as “a major achievement heralding a significant change in the navy’s substantive development.”
News of the test launch did not appear in Rodong Sinmun, the Workers’ Party’s newspaper for North Korean residents, and was released only through KCNA, an outlet aimed at foreign audiences.
[email protected] Kim Hyun-ji Reporter