Seoul — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un called for his country to achieve "absolute superiority" in drone technology while attending an unmanned aeronautical technology exhibition and weapons demonstration, state media KCNA reported on Friday, October 30, 2026, as tensions remain elevated along the heavily fortified border with South Korea.
What Kim Said and Observed
Addressing the exhibition, Kim stressed the need to seize "the absolute superiority in the drone technology" and announced unspecified steps needed to "rapidly expand and strengthen the unmanned aeronautical technology," according to KCNA. He said pursuing superiority in drone technology was "an indispensable option" given the changing nature of modern warfare, and called for the use of high-level artificial intelligence in unmanned weapons systems to be treated as a top priority in building North Korea's modern armed forces.
KCNA reported the exhibition was held "with splendor" and that Kim was accompanied by his wife, his daughter, and senior military officers and officials. A firepower demonstration following the exhibition involved tactical suicide attack drones, tactical cruise missiles, multipurpose drones, and a battalion of 600mm multiple rocket launchers.
State media photographs showed unmanned aerial vehicles bearing the North Korean Air Force's emblem, as well as a separate image appearing to show a drone crashing into and exploding against a military vehicle on a hillside as part of the demonstration. KCNA claimed the missiles, launched from drones and other unmanned aircraft alongside cruise missiles, struck their targets with "100-percent accuracy," a claim that could not be independently verified.
South Korea's military said separately on Thursday, October 29, that North Korea had fired around 10 projectiles, including short-range ballistic missiles, in the period surrounding the exhibition. The drone exhibition and weapons tests come as North Korea remains embroiled in an ongoing standoff with South Korea along their heavily fortified border.
Kim's Pattern of Prioritising Drones and AI
Friday's event continues a pattern of repeated, high-profile calls by Kim for the development of drone and AI capabilities within North Korea's military over the past two years. In August 2024, Kim visited the Drone Institute of North Korea's Academy of Defence Sciences and oversaw a test of domestically developed drones destroying designated targets, calling at the time for accelerated production of suicide drones for infantry and special operations use, as well as underwater suicide attack drones and multi-purpose reconnaissance drones.
In March 2025, he personally supervised the testing of new AI-equipped suicide and reconnaissance drones produced by North Korea's Unmanned Aerial Technology Complex. In September 2025, he designated AI a top priority in the modernisation of North Korea's weapons systems.
The Russia Connection
Reporting on Friday's exhibition noted that, since October 2024, North Korea has sent more than 16,000 personnel to Russia to support its war against Ukraine, and that this deployment has, according to South Korean intelligence assessments, given North Korean forces live battlefield experience of drone warfare, electronic warfare and combined-arms operations.
South Korean officials and independent analysts have separately and repeatedly warned about the potential transfer of sensitive Russian military technology to North Korea as compensation for Kim's provision of troops and weapons to support Russia's war effort, a dynamic that has fuelled broader concern about the pace and sophistication of North Korea's drone and missile development in recent years.
Friday's event follows a now-established pattern of North Korea holding annual defence exhibitions in Pyongyang. In October 2025, North Korea held its "Defence Development-2025" exhibition, its third consecutive annual event of this kind, during which Kim vowed to counter what he described as "real and serious" threats from the United States by bolstering North Korea's military and technological development, and accused South Korea and the US of conducting military drills based on nuclear-operation scenarios and expanding defence assets in the region.
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