- Scientists say they have used the technology to build a pistol-sized coilgun that is the smallest and most powerful of its kind
- The Chinese military already uses AI to build powerful weapons such as railguns, that can fire projectiles over a range of hundreds of kilometres
Artificial intelligence can outperform humans in designing futuristic weapons, according to a team of Chinese naval researchers who say they have developed the world’s smallest yet most powerful coilgun.
The prototype weapon developed by professor Zhang Xiao and her team at the Naval University of Engineering in Wuhan has a 12cm (4.5-inch) barrel, about the size of a pistol, which contains three battery-powered coils that generate an electromagnetic field.