Report: North Korea ready to use AI in military operations

It’s widely recognized that North Korean cyber actors are leveraging AI tools to accelerate cryptocurrency theft operations. Now, however, a new report suggests that the secretive Pyongyang regime can also utilize its AI capabilities in military operations.

North Korea is now able to deploy AI technologies for facial recognition, voice synthesis, and more, according to a new report from South Korea’s Institute for National Security Strategy (INSS).

Researchers are basing their conclusions on an analysis of publicly available North Korean research papers from 2025. The latter reportedly reveals significant advances in technologies ranging from multi-object tracking to accent identification.

These capabilities could support surveillance, target identification, voice impersonation, and cryptocurrency theft, the report warns, augmenting North Korea's asymmetric cyber and military operations.

The INSS study traced the expansion of North Korea’s AI research infrastructure to the 2010s. That’s when Kim Il Sung University’s Department of Computer Science and Kim Chaek University of Technology established their first AI laboratories.

More specifically, the report highlights a 2025 study from the National Academy of Sciences’ Mathematics Research Institute, detailing an improved facial recognition system that can identify faces even in low-light or low-resolution footage.

According to the INSS, the upgraded model could significantly enhance access control and surveillance around military sites.

Another study on multi-object tracking, published in August 2025 by the Kim Chaek University of Technology’s AI Technology Research Institute, documented multi-person tracking algorithms demonstrated on sports footage.

But INSS suggests the technology could be utilized as CCTV or drones for real-time automated surveillance of borders, cities, and military installations.

Such technological developments could allow the North Korean military to make the most of its combat experience in the Ukraine war, which has seen significant drone warfare advances.

North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong Un, has repeatedly suggested that AI-enabled unmanned systems are central to his force modernization agenda.

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In March, he publicly showcased AI-equipped suicide drones and said in September that the use of AI is a “top priority” in modernizing his country’s increasingly sophisticated weapons technology and building up drone capabilities.

One report from an independent analysis group, 38 North, found that North Korea has engaged in cross-border collaborative AI research with academics in the US, China, and South Korea despite sanctions, suggesting it has undertaken “substantial efforts” to catch up in the AI race.

The United Nations Security Council Resolution 2321, adopted in November 2016, prohibits scientific and technical cooperation with North Korea.

However, the INSS study precisely identifies collaboration with Russia and China as a key accelerant of North Korea’s AI deployment. In July, North Korea’s state media said that the country was dispatching AI researchers and students to Russia and other countries.

The researchers also note that North Korea relies on Chinese distribution networks and Southeast Asian financial channels to obtain needed equipment.

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