State media reported on Saturday that North Korea has tested a “new-type” precision-guided torpedo system that uses artificial intelligence to detect targets and guide the weapon. The nuclear-armed country is stepping up its weapons testing, and the announcement comes as tensions with South Korea remain high.
According to the Korean Central News Agency, the underwater test-fire of the “super-speed” Zam-2.0 torpedo system took place on Thursday. The launch was meant to confirm the successful technical updating of the weapon. The announcement followed days after Pyongyang said it had fired two types of cruise missiles from a submarine, after weeks of friction with Seoul over a landmine explosion along their border.
Zam-2.0 torpedo test and AI guidance claims
The agency said AI technology had been applied to the torpedo’s target detection and guidance functions. It also said the test confirmed core technology for improving propulsion efficiency and rocket propulsion performance. North Korea added that it had completed more than 180 rounds of different tests over the past five years.
Pyongyang had announced earlier this month an AI-assisted launch of an intermediate-range hypersonic missile. At that time, it said there was “no way to avoid” the weapon, which it described as capable of changing its flight path at a low altitude. Saturday’s torpedo announcement adds to a pattern of new weapons claims from the North.
Why analysts see AI as a possible advantage
Torpedoes are designed to strike enemy targets underwater at high speed. Analysts say that the stated use of AI could also allow North Korea to carry out evasive manoeuvres and make autonomous decisions that could confuse an adversary.
Lim Eul-chul, a professor at Kyungnam University, said defenders already use decoys to divert torpedoes. “South Korea and the United States deploy decoy targets to divert torpedoes, but AI could potentially help distinguish real targets from decoys,” he said. He also said Pyongyang was investing heavily in showing that US strategic assets could be rendered ineffective, referring to its torpedo and submarine-launched weapons work.
In September, leader Kim Jong Un stressed the need to raise the level of artificial intelligence in the country’s weapons systems. Analysts have linked this push to the broader modernisation effort.
Arms race with Seoul and talk of a Trump meeting
The announcement came as the two Koreas appear to be intensifying an arms race over hypersonic missiles. Such missiles travel at more than five times the speed of sound and can manoeuvre in mid-flight, which makes them much harder to track and intercept.
Days after North Korea reported its AI-assisted hypersonic test, Seoul test-fired its own hypersonic glide vehicle. South Korea described it as a “key strategic asset capable of changing the course of the battlefield.” North Korea later this week questioned that test, saying it may have failed to achieve hypersonic flight. South Korea rejected that claim a day later.
The tests come amid growing speculation about a possible meeting between US President Donald Trump and Kim. Trump said again this week that he “may” meet Kim during his Asia tour next month, ahead of the APEC summit in China in November. Pyongyang has not responded to several earlier overtures.
Yang Moo-jin, a former president of the University of North Korean Studies in Seoul, said North Korea appeared to be playing down South Korea’s hypersonic programme to present itself as ahead of Seoul in the arms race. He added, however, that the torpedo system may need more time. Reducing the noise a torpedo makes underwater is a major technical challenge, he said, and “North Korea does not yet appear to have reached that level.”
