[Editor’s Note: Army Mad Scientist is pleased to feature another passage from the US Army War College strategic research project entitled “Decision Advantage Through Intelligentization by 2035”. In this passage, Lieutenant Colonel Joshua Meador describes the likelihood of China being able to achieve decision advantage through infrastructure development in the next decade, which could represent an increased threat to the US. Through heavy investments in infrastructure that can process information quickly such as 6g, energy infrastructure and computing capacity, China’s military could field a more nimble and effective force, albeit after surpassing some limitations.
The members of Team Proxima Horizonte produced this collective strategic research project as a prerequisite for completing the Master of Strategic Studies program at the United States Army War College. The research, analysis, and production of this report were conducted from October 2025 through May 2026. Team Proxima Horizonte is a part of the Army Futures Seminar for Academic Year 2025-2026. The full report can be found here — Read on!]
Executive Summary
The chances are roughly even (45–55%) that China’s infrastructure enables the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) to achieve a decision advantage and an intelligentized force by 2035. Positive momentum in renewable power, early-stage 6G investment, and preparations for cognitive warfare offset persistent vulnerabilities in operational integration, semiconductor supply chains, and institutional corruption. Achieving the 2035 objective hinges on whether enabling technologies mature faster than structural weaknesses constrain them. Whether that vision materializes depends on the five factors examined below: (1) systems confrontation and joint operational readiness, (2) cognitive domain operations and command culture, (3) energy infrastructure and computing capacity, (4) 6G telecommunications development, and (5) semiconductor self-sufficiency.
Discussion
Factor One: Systems Confrontation and Joint Operational Readiness.
The PLA’s future warfighting architecture centers on degrading the links between an adversary’s ability to sense, decide, and strike. This construct depends on three mutually reinforcing pillars: collection, information, and fires. Recent organizational reforms created modular units containing command, strike, information warfare, intelligence, and sustainment elements. This modular structure enables mission-tailored task forces, yet the PLA has not demonstrated the joint proficiency it demands. Its forces lack sustained operational experience, rendering this warfighting architecture conceptual rather than proven. This model remains unvalidated for intelligentized operations. If PLA exercises document synchronized multi-domain effects across brigade-level task forces, that would indicate systems confrontation is maturing toward operational viability and would shift this factor from a liability to a positive driver. Until then, this factor weighs against the estimate.
Factor Two: Cognitive Domain Operations and Command Culture.
The PLA treats an opponent’s mental space as a contested battleground, where perception manipulation and algorithmic processing converge to fracture enemy cohesion. Through its dual-use industrial strategy, the PLA harnesses civilian data repositories to craft targeted influence operations. Researchers are pursuing synthetic voice replication, fabricated video, and neural interfaces to corrupt adversary perceptions. Yet command-culture weaknesses temper these ambitions. Senior PLA officers struggle with independent judgment under pressure. These shortcomings stem from a centralized command culture that rewards compliance over initiative. Despite these constraints, the PLA’s ability to weaponize civilian data and deploy synthetic media at scale pushes the estimate toward the positive side of roughly even, due to these capabilities not requiring resolving leadership deficiencies. If PLA exercises show junior commanders launching influence operations independently without waiting for orders from above, this would indicate the PLA is loosening centralized control, a shift that would push this factor from a mixed signal to a clear positive in the overall estimate.
Factor Three: Energy Infrastructure and Computing Capacity.
Beijing is restructuring its power grid to meet AI’s computational demands. A national initiative routes data processing to interior regions where renewable capacity offsets server-farm electricity consumption. A parallel initiative integrates AI into the national energy grid to optimize distribution and forecast demand. China has set a target of sourcing over 75% of its electricity from non-fossil resources within the coming decade. Current generating capacity, however, meets only roughly a third of estimated data-center demand. Physical distance between western data storage and eastern processing hubs creates unresolved latency. A measurable decline in east-west data transmission delays would indicate that expanded renewable capacity is enabling co-located processing and storage.
Factor Four: 6G Telecommunications Development.
China’s pursuit of sixth-generation telecommunications compounds its energy and computing efforts. National planning documents and a significant share of global 6G patent filings underscore this technology as a pillar of economic and military strength. Orbital and airborne relay nodes form a mesh architecture intended to ensure global data transmission. When fused with machine learning, this network envisions autonomous fault diagnosis and persistent reach. However, persistent obstacles remain in terahertz-band signal stability and spectrum interference at scale. Successful sub-terahertz prototype demonstrations under operational conditions would indicate progress ahead of projections. Absent such demonstrations, 6G remains an early-stage investment that supports the estimate but does not yet shift it toward likely.
Factor Five: Semiconductor Self-Sufficiency.
A critical bottleneck across every domain is semiconductor dependency. China sources the vast majority of its advanced chips from foreign suppliers. The specialized design software integral to chip architecture remains dependent on U.S. and European providers. In China, its primary semiconductor investment vehicle, the National Integrated Circuit Industry Investment Fund, has suffered from endemic graft and absent market accountability. Export controls on lithographic equipment remain the primary barrier to fabrication below 7 nanometers. Chinese firms have nonetheless reached that threshold commercially and are expanding technical talent pipelines. If Chinese firms demonstrate commercial chip production at volume from a domestic fabrication facility, that would indicate this constraint is narrowing ahead of the 2035 timeline of gaining self-sufficiency. Because every other factor depends on access to advanced chips, semiconductor self-sufficiency is the single variable most likely to shift the overall estimate from roughly even to likely.
Despite the gaps identified above, the PLA envisions a force that has achieved
intelligentization, one that fights through machine-speed decision cycles and cognitive manipulation rather than traditional kinetic operations. PLA theorists describe conflict waged through virtual environments to subjugate an adversary’s will via political, economic, and social manipulation at machine speed. AI-native connectivity would allow networks to detect intrusions, isolate corrupted nodes, and restore function without human intervention. Orbital relay architectures would sustain command links independent of terrestrial infrastructure and conventional navigation signals. This convergence points toward sustained campaigns below the threshold of kinetic conflict. Under this concept, the PLA would wage campaigns through pre-kinetic cognitive pressure and machine-speed system destruction, seeking to paralyze adversary decision cycles before kinetic escalation becomes necessary. Indicators of this transition include observed
network autonomy, virtual-environment influence at scale, and logistics freed from fixed supply chains.
Implications for the Decisionmaker
Semiconductor dependency is the single most constraining factor across all five domains. Energy, 6G, cognitive operations, and systems confrontation each depend on advanced chip access to move from concept to capability. Of the five factors, semiconductor self-sufficiency is the one that, if resolved, would most decisively shift the estimate from roughly even to likely, and it is the factor most directly shaped by U.S. policy. If China achieves domestic production of advanced semiconductors at commercial volume before 2035, the remaining four factors would accelerate in parallel. Conversely, if export controls and fabrication gaps persist, those factors are unlikely to reach operational maturity independently. Monitoring Chinese semiconductor self-sufficiency, specifically, volume production from domestic fabrication facilities and reduced reliance on foreign EDA toolsets, offers the highest-leverage indicator for updating this estimate and the most direct point of U.S. policy influence on China’s intelligentization timeline.
If you enjoyed this post, check out the T2COM G-2’s Operational Environment Enterprise web page, brimming with authoritative information on the Operational Environment and how our adversaries fight.
About the Author: LTC(P) Joshua Meador graduated from Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Colorado, in 2003 with a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the United States Air Force (Space Operator) through the Reserve Officers Training Corps. During his tenure in the Air Force, he earned a Master of Business Administration from Webster University. In 2008 he transferred services through the Blue to Green program and branched into Army Military
Intelligence. In June of 2025, he relinquished command of the 741st Military Intelligence Battalion, and attended the Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Upon successful graduation, LTC(P) Meador is now assigned to the Headquarters Department of the Army – G2 (Intelligence) as Chief of Plans.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this blog post do not necessarily reflect those of the U.S. Department of Defense, Department of the Army, or the Transformation and Training Command (T2COM)
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