facilities damaged in an Iranian attack in the United Arab Emirates<\/a> on March 18.<\/p>\nAmerican military analyst Ryan Fedasiuk, a public service fellow with the US Department of State, said AI-enhanced satellite imagery created by MizarVision could enable Iranian forces to target US troops and bases in close to real time.<\/p>\n
“Australian and US soldiers in the Middle East could be killed because of this. This is real-time battlefield information that is being used to harm US soldiers. It’s remarkable,” he said, reacting to the ABC story.<\/p>\n
MizarVision has been using the software to identify different military capabilities, including specific types of planes, the location of navy ships, and the deployment of air defence systems across the Middle East.<\/p>\n
Such capability once required the resources of a national intelligence agency.<\/p>\n
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Mr Fedasiuk said Iran did not have the ability to tag US military assets in near-real time before the war.<\/p>\n
“Iran doesn’t have robust access to satellite capability. This provides them with that capability,” he said.<\/p>\n
Mr Fedasiuk has authored papers on the military use of AI, including within the People’s Liberation Army of China.<\/p>\n
According to business listings, MizarVision is a private company that was founded in 2021 and has 5.5 per cent government ownership.<\/p>\n
MizarVision’s website states the company’s mission is to lower “the barriers to geospatial intelligence discovery and analysis \u2026 making it no longer the exclusive capability of a few organisations”.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/b346080627bb51e3ebd4110029bd2a78.jpeg\")
<\/p>\n
This image of Prince Sultan Air Base was published on February 25. (Supplied: MizarVision)<\/p>\n
Iran outsourcing military intel<\/p>\n
Neither Mr Fedasiuk nor Major General McLachlan have seen the classified DIA assessment.<\/p>\n
Reacting to the ABC report, Mr Fedasiuk said Iran was effectively outsourcing targeting data from Chinese enterprises.<\/p>\n
“This is a further escalation to provide aid, quite directly, to Iranian forces. Perhaps the greatest degree of support by China for a proxy force against the United States in the war,” he said.<\/p>\n
“It’s a significant development. The company has zeroed in on US forces and it’s valuable information that is useful to the IRGC [Islamic Revolutionary Guard].”<\/p>\n
In a statement to the ABC, China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs said reports that a Chinese company was helping Iranian forces were “sensationalist”.<\/p>\n
“It is understood that the satellite imagery released by the relevant companies was obtained from open-source channels and is a routine market practice,” it told the ABC.<\/p>\n
The ministry said Chinese companies were always required “to conduct their business in accordance with laws and regulations”.<\/p>\n
Mr Fedasiuk said the AI capability was once confined to just a few countries and that China had a responsibility to intervene.<\/p>\n
“This is now in the public domain. China has an obligation to step in and stop this,” he said.<\/p>\n
“While there are legitimate questions to be asked about the degree of Chinese government support, it’s hard to believe China’s government can’t control it \u2014 although it could be that China is not aware of the extent of the value this intelligence provides to the IRGC.”<\/p>\n
Satellite providers go dark over security risks<\/p>\n
Over the weekend satellite company Planet Labs said the US government had asked all satellite imagery providers to indefinitely withhold images of the conflict region.<\/p>\n
“There are genuine concerns of use of Planet Labs data over Iran, as well as an extended window of risk for recent imagery,” a company spokesperson told the ABC before that announcement.<\/p>\n
The restriction expanded a 14-day delay on imagery of the Middle East that Planet Labs implemented last month.<\/p>\n
The US-based company said the move was meant to prevent adversaries from using the imagery to attack the US and its allies.<\/p>\n
MizarVision has not responded to repeated requests for comment.<\/p>\n
Major General McLachlan has a financial interest in the Australian company DroneShield.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chinese satellite images enhanced by artificial intelligence could help Iran target US and allied forces to within a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":366055,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[365,363,364,192209,192213,169108,93497,192211,168569,192210,111,139,69,192212,145,102773],"class_list":{"0":"post-366054","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-china-iran","12":"tag-iran-intelligence-agencies","13":"tag-iran-war","14":"tag-islamic-revolutionary-guard-corps","15":"tag-major-general-gus-mclachlan","16":"tag-middle-east-war","17":"tag-mizarvision","18":"tag-new-zealand","19":"tag-newzealand","20":"tag-nz","21":"tag-ryan-fedasiuk","22":"tag-technology","23":"tag-us-department-of-state"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=366054"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366054\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/366055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}