Indeed a huge part of future air combat. But if this is still "early days", wouldn't it be unnecessary for a manned platform to be controlling or directing unmanned platforms when these things become commissioned? If some machine learning is already claimed to be employed on current fighters like su-35 and J-20 (probably many others) surely by the time these UCAVs are ready for service, a better "AI" networked squadron of varying UAV platforms, serving different roles, will replace a huge chunk of the existing manned structure in an ideal theoretical case. Surely command can build up a good enough awareness of a combat ecosystem by then without having manned fighters directing drones? Why can't they be completely directed by ground stations/ AWAC like aircrafts far from the combat zone, while fighting alongside manned aircraft. Seems like using human efforts to command these things is wasted energy and misdirecting attention. If they can operate well enough autonomously, whatever and whenever they need human input could be done by those ground and air based control stations? I can't imagine a situation where the job can't be done by the latter group and must require a nearby fighter pilot to do but that's just my very limited understanding of how these things work.
The above suggests to me the possibility that these UCAVs are far closer to operation than they are hinting. Basically this decade where "AI" is still nowhere near strong enough for UCAVs to be autonomous and much of the command and control planning for these platforms are already done so they've gone with the control it by aircraft/ maybe ground bases route instead of freeing up most of the human input. Or perhaps they are planning for near autonomous UCAVs and the leaker is just mentioning the manned fighter bit to mislead or downplay actual plan/ability.
