In the summer of 2022, six months after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the tide of war began to turn as great swathes of territory in the northeast of the country were recovered by the Ukrainian armed forces. One of the game-changers for the Ukrainians was assumed to have been the arrival of sixteen American HIMARS rocket systems, which could hit Russian assets with unerring accuracy. Indeed it was. But what I and other analysts of the conflict failed to realise was that the HIMARS rockets were being used with an American-developed Artificial Intelligence (AI) targeting system codenamed Maven. This ‘enabled the Ukrainians to start hammering deep behind Russian frontlines,’ writes Katrina Manson, ‘striking large ammunition supply points, logistical supply hubs, fuel storage depots, and command and control points’.

A year later, upgrades of Maven helped the Ukrainians to identify ‘dynamic targets’ that included mobile missile launchers (Transporter Erector Launchers or TELs), counter-battery artillery radars known as Zooparks and radars for S-300 and S-400 air defence systems. The impact in these months ‘was huge’, a Ukrainian army officer told Manson.

Project Maven is top secret. Its records are not subject to release under the US Freedom of Information Act and its budget is classified. But Manson, a Bloomberg reporter who covers cyber and emerging tech, has been able to reveal the extraordinary true story of Project Maven by interviewing more