The flagship government propaganda outlet in North Korea announced on Wednesday that communist dictator Kim Jong-un had presided over a successful test of a “tactical cruise missile” relying on artificial intelligence (AI).
The Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said the tests occurred on Tuesday and involved a “newly-developed lightweight multi-purpose missile launching system and [a] multiple tactical cruise missile weapon system.”
“The relevant tests analyzed and estimated the power of special mission warhead of tactical ballistic missile [sic],” KCNA explained, “the reliability of 240mm controlled artillery rocket with expanded firing range which employed an ultra-precision autonomous navigation system, and the AI-guided hit accuracy of tactical cruise missile.”
Experts believe that the communist regime in North Korea, while literally starving its citizens for decades, has consistently also invested in the development of AI technology and related predecessors for years, seeking to improve its armed forces. More recently, Pyongyang has increasingly boasted of the integration of AI technology into its military at the command of Kim, who has suggested that leading the world in AI military use is necessary to present an end to the 73-year-old armistice that ended active hostilities in the Korean War.
During the tests on Tuesday, KCNA claimed that the cruise missiles tested used an “AI terminal guidance function” that allowed it to improve targeting, a “powerful weapon system that can strike in an ultra-precision way” as far as 100 kilometers away.
Kim allegedly experienced “great satisfaction” while observing the tests and declared, “it is essential condition for our army’s operations to have such destructive power as enough to make any encountering force impossible to survive theoretically, apart from fortune [sic throughout].”
The South Korean military appeared to confirm that some form of military test occurred Tuesday. According to the country’s Yonhap News Agency, the armed forces reported the detection of the launch of several close-range ballistic missiles (CRBM) towards the Yellow Sea. CRBMs are usually categorized as having a range under 300 kilometers, so KCNA’s description of missiles with 100-kilometer range would coincide with what Seoul observed. The close distance suggests that the North Korean government is attempting to intimidate South Korea and Japan, and not directly the United States, with its latest tests.
Yonhap noted that North Korea has conducted eight such missile tests in 2026. While KCNA and other North Korean propaganda outlets regularly disparage Japan, South Korea, and the United States, Kim Jong-un has avoided anti-American rhetoric in the past year, instead focusing on positive messages elevating North Korean communism and his allies China and Russia. The Russian government, in particular, has been supportive of Kim, in some ways eclipsing Chinese influence on the rogue dictatorship.
Russia and North Korea dramatically improved relations in the aftermath of the Wuhan coronavirus pandemic, during which rumors surfaced that Kim had fallen seriously ill and had lost trust in Beijing. The diplomatic efforts yielded a visit by Russian strongman Vladimir Putin to Pyongyang in 2024, the first in two decades, in which the leaders signed a mutual defense agreement that preceded the presence of North Korean soldiers in Europe fighting in support of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Shortly after the Pyongyang visit, American officials revealed that they estimated that as many as 10,000 North Korean soldiers had been deployed to fight Ukraine. Kim Jong-un has since personally celebrated North Koreans killed supporting Russian adventurism and made heroes of their families.
North Korea’s relationship with AI is more of a mystery, though evidence exists that the rogue dictatorship has long been interested in AI, sub-field machine learning (ML), and related technologies. The North Korean research site 38 North explained in a 2024 report that “North Korean efforts to develop AI/ML have been consistently seen over three decades across various sectors,” beginning in the 1990s. The outlet noted Pyongyang does not seem only interested in AI as a military technology, but as a potential economic aid given the sanctions on the country.
“There is evidence of concerted efforts to leverage these technologies, such as nuclear safety and wargaming, to achieve its broader economic and technological goals,” the outlet concluded.
North Korea began more openly boasting of possessing military AI technology following the Russia mutual defense agreement signing. In March 2025, KCNA published a report claiming that Kim Jong-un had presided over an AI-powered suicide drone test, which Pyongyang claimed to be successful. By September of that year, state media was quoting Kim declaring that AI military use was a “top priority,” particularly to improve its drone arsenal.
“Saying that the field of unmanned equipment and artificial intelligence should be top-prioritized and developed in modernizing the armed forces, [Kim] stressed it is important to correctly shape the state long-term plan for promoting the rapid development of the work to use intelligent drones,” KCNA reported at the time.
The South Korean Institute for National Security Strategy (INSS) published a report a month later finding that North Korea had significantly improved its AI technology, particularly in “surveillance, target identification, voice impersonation, and cryptocurrency theft.”