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When Code Becomes Combat Power: Why Software Now Shapes Military Power
A drone can carry an advanced camera. A fighter plane can carry advanced weaponry. A satellite can monitor thousands of kilometres of area. However, these systems cannot become powerful on their own. It is their potential in battlefields that becomes dependent more and more on something invisible: the software that integrates sensors and converts data into decisions.
Illustration by The Geostrata
This is redefining military modernization. For many years, defence capacity had always been linked with platforms, missiles, planes, ships, and tanks. In today’s world, the key is in the speed at which such platforms communicate and adapt to change. This poses a problem for India. Creating indigenous hardware alone does not help; the software platform that links it might be as important.
FROM PLATFORMS TO NETWORKS
The change is evident even within the Indian armed forces. The Army's SANJAY Battlefield Surveillance System, launched in 2025, takes in data from ground and aerial sensors, processes the information and generates the Common Surveillance Picture using the Army Data Network and satellite communication networks.
It is not merely that India has added yet another surveillance system. The reason it is significant is that multiple sensors can become much more useful through software integration to form an operational picture.
This is the point at which software alters warfare. A sensor simply reports to the command centre what it sees. However, a networked system can assist in answering questions such as what is taking place, where it is taking place, and whether different reports are related. This means that the conduct of war goes from gathering intelligence to networking intelligence.
CONSTRUCTION OF THE SOFTWARE LAYER
India has started developing this layer at the home front. In October 2025, Indian Radio Software Architecture (IRSA) 1.0: the Indian software specification for software-defined radios was launched by DRDO. It provides common interfaces, Application Programming Interfaces (APIs), a run-time environment, and means of waveform portability. The aim in practice is to increase interoperability in military communication systems, as opposed to allowing each system to run on separate platforms.
Similarly, the same is seen in artificial intelligence. In its press release of December 2013, the Indian Army announced that the years 2024 and 2025 would be “Years of Technology Absorption” and mentioned 59 apps/websites in situational awareness, intelligence, information management, and decision-making support. The Army has developed its own AI roadmap and partnered with Bharat Electronics Limited for setting up an AI incubation centre.
The growth of indigenous defence software development is also happening outside of conventional defence labs through the program iDEX, where new-age firms such as startups and MSMEs are developing anti-drone software using AI technology, counter-UAS systems using software-defined radio, underwater navigation software, and much more.
ADITI and Defence India Start-up Challenges have been increasingly covering topics like artificial intelligence, military communication, networking, and autonomous systems among their problem areas.
THE LIMITS OF SOFTWARE INDEPENDENCE
But with this progress comes the crucial question. Software independence is not accomplished through the creation of additional applications; it requires control over the underlying architecture. While India's capability to build the airframe itself is becoming better, the entire system also requires processors, sensors, communication links, navigation, operating environment, algorithms, encryption, and data systems.
If the key hardware or software libraries come from abroad, the platform could well be Indian-made but not entirely Indian in terms of capabilities. It has also been recently reported that India continues to rely on foreign sources for some of its high-tech components like microchips and sensors. The very same issue becomes even more pressing in the case of a network of such systems. While a certain military force can have its own planes, drones and satellites, if their software cannot communicate effectively, all that will be gained is an array of sophisticated platforms.
India still faces fragmented defence networks and protocols, dependence on foreign sources for critical hardware and software, limited scalability, and difficulties in integrating emerging technologies such as AI and quantum-secure encryption into existing systems. The problem, therefore, is not merely technical but architectural as well.
WHEN THE SYSTEMS CANNOT TALK
India requires defence systems that are built on interoperability from the get-go, and not systems that cannot be connected once they have been purchased. SANJAY is an example of the usefulness of data fusion. Indian Army Research Cell (IRSA) is an example of the significance of standard software. Together, they demonstrate the need for something bigger, namely a defence architecture wherein the army, navy and air force can share relevant information without being in their own digital world.
Cybersecurity makes this more significant still. With militaries becoming software-dependent, the opponent does not always have to destroy the platform physically. Communications disruption, data corruption, navigational interference, or an attack on the update process will diminish the capability of the sophisticated weapon system. The Evaluating Trustworthy AI Framework published by the Indian armed forces in 2024 noted that while AI systems should perform effectively, they should also be able to withstand any attacks.
WHO CONTROLS THE CODE
The truly important question to be answered is who will control the code once the system is operational? The life cycle of a combat aircraft and/or missile may span several decades, but its software will require frequent upgrades. Threats emerge, vulnerabilities are found, and the environment changes. Even when the physical system is locally assembled, dependence on external vendors for critical software, updates or underlying technologies can constrain operational autonomy.
Therefore, the Indian defence system must shift from software procurement to software ownership and its lifecycle capabilities. This entails building expertise not only for AI but also in operating systems, middleware, secure cloud services, standards for data, cyber security, simulation, digital twins, and mission software. That would also involve providing Indian firms access to sustained defence programs instead of considering software firms just vendors for individual problems.
There are indications that this ecosystem is beginning to take shape. The Army and Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) have created a Centre of Excellence that deals with, among other things, cybersecurity, wireless communication, digital twins, and unmanned systems. At the same time, India’s defence startups are shifting away from hardware to software and intelligence layers.
DEFENCE IS BECOMING SOFTWARE-FIRST
The emerging defence-software model can be seen clearly in India and Taiwan. US firm Shield AI offers its autonomous technology product Hivemind in India, whereas JSW Defence develops V-BAT’s manufacturing infrastructure within the country. India has also selected V-BATs with Hivemind software licences for the Indian Army, allowing the autonomy layer to be developed and integrated with Indian partners.
In September 2026, HavocAI and CSBC Corporation Taiwan, which happens to be the biggest shipyard builder in the nation, revealed a license partnership agreement on making autonomous surface vessels. In Taiwan, Shield AI has partnered with the National Chung-Shan Institute of Science and Technology for integrating Hivemind into the domestic unmanned system.
This is important because the foreign company need not produce the whole weapon system; rather, it produces the “brain,” or the technology, and leaves it to the local industry to produce the “platform.” It enables the nations to embrace sophisticated software and still maintain a stronger involvement in the hardware infrastructure surrounding it.
Singapore’s Defence Science and Technology Agency (DSTA) and the Republic of Singapore Air Force have partnered with US-based Shield AI to use its Hivemind autonomy software across autonomous drone applications. At the same time, Shield AI and Singaporean defence company ST Engineering agreed in 2026 to integrate Hivemind into selected ST Engineering platforms. In this way, Singapore has managed to implement the technology developed overseas and apply it to its own platforms.
BEYOND HARDWARE AATMANIRBHARTA
The important point to be taken from this is that Aatmanirbharta in terms of defence should not end at the factory gates itself. Manufacturing a missile or a drone is only half the job. The real issue is whether India can control the digital mechanisms that allow these networks to connect, understand, and develop.
While the battle of the future may still revolve around missiles, planes, ships, and men, their efficacy will come to rely on unseen lines of code that bind them together. The next step for India in the path of modernising its armed forces is not just about acquiring platforms. It is about creating an information grid that allows these platforms to work as one force.
BY HEMAPRIYA
TEAM GEOSTRATA
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