Billionaire investor and former Google CEO Eric Schmidt said it’s time for the US military to ditch the tanks, artillery and mortars in favor of aerial drones, which it is building to help Ukraine.
“I read somewhere that the US has thousands of tanks stored somewhere,” he said at the Future Investment Initiative in Saudi Arabia on Wednesday.
“Give it to them. Buy a drone instead.
Schmidt’s comments Reported by Bloomberg News.
is schmidt Listed by Bloomberg Billionaires Index As of Wednesday, he became the 51st richest person in the world with a net worth of $33.3 billion.
The former Google boss said the Russia-Ukraine war showed how “a $5,000 drone can destroy a $5 million tank.”
Earlier this year, Forbes reported that Schmidt is the founder of White Stork, a military startup that is building a “kamikaze drone” designed to roam the battlefield before being sent to destroy its target. Is designed.
“White Stork” is also a reference to a species of bird commonly found in Ukraine, where Schmidt has played a key role in helping the country’s defense efforts to fend off Russian aggression.
According to Forbes, the company is developing a mass-produced drone that uses artificial intelligence to hit targets even in environments where communications are disrupted due to GPS jamming.
Last July, Schmidt wrote An op-ed for the Wall Street Journal Promoting drones as “the future of warfare”.
According to Schmidt, Ukrainian forces have “succeeded” due to the deployment of drones – this despite the fact that Russia has a 3-to-1 advantage in troops as well as air superiority.
While Ukraine has suffered heavy losses, it has “consistently outmaneuvered the enemy.”
Schmidt served as CEO of Google from 2001 to 2011, a time of rapid growth for the California-based technology company.
He later became executive chairman of Google and its new parent company, Alphabet, in 2015, before resigning as chairman in 2018.
