Science & technology | Conflict analysis

Software developers aspire to forecast who will win a battle

Conflict in Ukraine and tension elsewhere means demand is high

Combat training of fighters of the Bucha Territorial Defense near Kyiv on June 17, 2022. On February 24, 2022, Russian troops entered the territory, starting a conflict that provoked destruction and a humanitarian crisis. (Photo by Oleg Pereverzev/NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Warfare is complex—and, as those who start wars often discover to their chagrin, unpredictable. Anything which promises to reduce that unpredictability is thus likely to attract both interest and money. Add the ability of modern computers to absorb and crunch unprecedented amounts of data, and throw in a live, data-generating war in the form of the conflict now being slugged out between Ukraine and Russia, not to mention the high level of tension across the Taiwan Strait, and you might assume that the business of trying to forecast the outcomes of conflicts is going into overdrive. Which it is.

This article appeared in the Science & technology section of the print edition under the headline “Predict and survive”

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