Speaking at the NDTV Defence Summit 2026 during a special address titled 'Fifth Generation and Beyond', Deputy Chief of the Air Staff Air Marshal Tejpal Singh emphasised that the primary goal must not be achieving technological uniformity, but rather ensuring operational coherence across diverse technologies, NDTV reported.

Air Marshal Tejpal Singh highlighted the critical need to identify current military assets, detect urgent operational requirements, and concurrently construct the foundational architecture for fifth-generation and future battlespace technologies.

He stressed that India cannot afford to stall current capabilities while waiting for an ideal future to manifest decades later.

Acknowledging that leaping directly from one generation of aircraft to another may not be possible, he asserted that jumping generations of combat architecture is fully achievable.

He suggested commencing this transformation by developing autonomy, distributed sensing, resilient communications, and open mission systems prior to the arrival of fifth-generation platforms, reinforcing that the Indian Air Force will inevitably evolve into a fifth-generation force.

He underlined that urgency and transformation are not competing requirements, noting that newly inducted assets must seamlessly integrate into tomorrow's combat structure.

Furthermore, he noted that not every platform needs to be fifth-generation, but the entire force—including human personnel across industry and military sectors—must become future compatible, requiring air warriors to master data, artificial intelligence, space, cyber, electronic warfare, joint operations, and systems thinking.

The Deputy Chief called for a paradigm shift in the relationship between military operators and the defence industry, advocating for close collaboration among operators, designers, software engineers, test establishments, and manufacturers throughout a system's life cycle.

He argued that experimental failures should be accepted as a natural step in developing adaptive combat systems, rather than treating every trial as a formal procurement program.

In conclusion, Air Marshal Tejpal Singh asserted that new weapon integrations should not drag on for five to seven years, software updates must not be delayed for nine months, and new algorithms ought to transition swiftly from laboratories to controlled operational trials. Once proven successful, these modern systems must be capable of rapid manufacturing and scaling.

Agencies