“If we equip our J-20s with an AI system in the future, it will be like having an extra assistant, which will enable the aircraft to leverage AI in air combat, particularly in medium-to-long-range and beyond-visual-range (BVR) battles to maximise the aircraft’s performance,” Zhang Xuefeng told China Central Television.
The connection is made because the J-20 program is no longer a one-aircraft story. It is a production and modernization effort that has watched China’s fifth-generation fleet pass the 300-aircraft mark and, by rough estimate, continues to add dozens each year. The attention-getter is numbers, but the game-changer is the gradual incorporation of engines, sensors, data links, and pilot ideas that are intended to enable the fighter to function as if it were a node in a larger air combat network.
There are a number of upgrade videos that all point in the same direction: increased range, faster decision cycles, and improved compatibility with drones and AEWC. Zhang has indicated that the J-20 has already been able to datalink in a joint operation with stealth attack drones and AEWC aircraft. The inference is that the next generation of improvements for the aircraft will be less in the area of shaping and more in the area of internal systems such as radar, processing, software, and emissions.
The most indicative form of this change of emphasis is the two-seat J-20S. This variant of the J-20 has been developed on the idea that future aerial engagements are increasingly becoming a management problem, which includes the fusion of sensors, management of datalinks, and control of manned-unmanned teaming operations, simultaneously with the lead pilot flying the aircraft. In this regard, the second crew station is not a training station but a battle management station, which takes the pilot’s workload away and transforms the aircraft into a flying command post that can control other aircraft. According to reference reporting, the J-20S was displayed in 2025 after rigorous testing.
Engines are the other major area of interest. The transition from foreign engines to WS-series engines is perceived as a necessary evolution for China to be able to supercruise on a regular basis and have the capability to produce sorties, with WS-15 being cited as the “end state” for engines in later-production aircraft. Nevertheless, there is also a certain degree of open-source skepticism about the maturity level of indigenous engines in terms of reliability. For U.S. and allied operators, the point of stress is not so much whether the J-20 is equivalent to the F-22 or F-35 on a particular battlefield but rather whether the West can sustain enough aircraft in a ready status and upgrade them.
The recent series of F-35 deliveries illustrates this point: 191 F-35s in one year after a hiatus because of Technology Refresh 3, the computing and display architecture that had to be accomplished before larger Block 4 changes. The scale of the F-35 program is a powerful advantage, but it also makes software maturity, depot capacity, and parts availability the linchpin of how quickly the war-fighting capability emerges. This is why “how many stealth fighters” comparisons miss the point of more enduring change.
China’s J-20 modernization approach is centered on system-level air warfare, which means fighters in conjunction with early warning aircraft, electronic attack aircraft, and unmanned aerial vehicles, while U.S. and allied air power is based on software-defined capability on schedule and at high rates of mission-capable aircraft. It is within this framework that the J-20’s growing inventory is significant, but so are the unglamorous technical details of processors, thermal margins, data links, depot capacity, and the ability to produce sorties when the air campaign ceases to be a duel and becomes a network.
