North Korea said it conducted a live test-firing of a new high-speed precision-guided torpedo system called Jam-2.0, claiming the weapon uses artificial intelligence for target detection and guidance.
The Korean Central News Agency reported on the 17th that the Academy of Defense Sciences, the Missile Administration and the Underwater Weapons Research Bureau carried out an underwater test launch on the 15th to verify technical improvements to the new torpedo system.
The agency described the test as routine work by defense science research institutions aimed at advancing the weapon system's technology. Senior officials overseeing defense science research who observed the test called it a major achievement that signals significant change in the substantive development of the navy, KCNA said.
North Korea also said it had applied AI technology to the torpedo's target detection and guidance functions. It claimed the test validated core technology for improved propulsion efficiency, developed through 180 trials over the past five years, as well as the performance of a rocket propulsion unit.
Analysts raised the possibility that the new weapon is a supercavitating torpedo, citing the reference to a rocket propulsion unit and the use of the term "high-speed." Supercavitating torpedoes travel faster than conventional ones by forming a layer of gas at the nose to reduce water resistance. Combining high-speed travel with guidance and control technology that can precisely detect and strike underwater targets is difficult, and other countries developing such torpedoes are assessed to have run into technical limits in operational use.
Some analysts said the emphasis on AI in the guidance system was intended to highlight accuracy. Lim Eul-chul, a professor at the Institute for Far Eastern Studies at Kyungnam University, said the North was showing off that it possesses a high-speed AI torpedo that would be hard to detect in advance or evade, aimed at major surface ships of the South Korean navy.
North Korea has recently focused on strengthening its naval forces, long assessed as inferior to those of South Korea. The latest test is seen as an attempt to show that it is advancing its underwater strike capability.
Shin Jong-woo, secretary general of the Korea Defense and Security Forum, said the North is developing new submarine-launched torpedoes in step with the buildup of its new submarine fleet, calling it an attempt to narrow the capability gap with the South Korean navy.