ABERDEEN PROVING GROUND, Md. — The Army has budgeted for the first division in fiscal 2027 to receive the production full stack Next Generation Command and Control ecosystem, according to officials.
“From a prototyping into production FY27 you’ll see, the Army’s working through right now identifying the next division beyond 25th and 4th and that would be a production representative full stack of capability,” Brig. Gen. Shane Taylor, the capability program executive for Command, Control, Communications, and Network, said in an interview at the Army’s Technical Exchange Meeting Jan. 30.
This new division, which has yet to be revealed, joins the 4th Infantry Division — whose NGC2 prototype is produced by Anduril and a team of vendors and encompasses a transport layer, an integration layer, a data layer and an application layer, known as the full stack — and the 25th Infantry Division, which is also prototyping a data and applications layer made by Lockheed and a team of vendors. Team Lockheed’s is not considered full stack as it is only looking at a component. Both aim to help inform the ultimate fielding of the NGC2 ecosystem across the Army.
Officials have recognized that, unlike in years past, each division will likely look somewhat different based on how they fight or what region they’re in, which is why the 4th ID and 25th ID are experimenting with different aspects of NGC2. As the effort moves forward, the Army will continue to have to figure out how much commonality there is between the baseline level of capability and how much divisions will have to be somewhat customized.
Taylor said there will be somewhere around 60 to 70 percent commonality within the ecosystem between divisions. The Army will enter into discussions with the other division commanders to see what that 40 to 30 percent difference is and what they’ll need specific to their formation.
“What we want to be able to get to is identify what that is for the next division. Again, we don’t want to be too rigid and we don’t want to constrain ourselves. … Those deltas are what those commanders will be able to shape and inform,” Taylor said.
The commonality will exist to a degree within transport, infrastructure and data, he said.
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Taylor added that the 4th ID architecture is pretty close to what it will eventually look like, though, individual materiel solutions within that architecture are still to be determined.
There will also likely be multiple tech stacks and capabilities brought by different vendors, as Anduril won’t be the prime for the entirety of the Army’s C2 portfolio.
Alex Miller, chief technology officer for the Army chief of staff, said Brig. Gen. Mike Kaloostian, director of the C2 Future Capability Directorate, “will have to make sure … how does he prioritize all of the micro changes, or identify patterns that are common across all those divisions that he goes, ‘Okay, I see this thing in seven divisions that’s a need. Okay, that’s at the top of the list now.’”
He added, “A year from now, I think we will see multiple tech stacks that all work together, but the things that really work well, everyone will have nominated independently, and we will institutionalize.”
The NGC2 budget is expected to continue to grow in future years. Officials said from a top line, the portfolio received an additional 20 percent from FY25 to FY26 and anticipate that will remain steady going forward.
One factor impacting how fast the Army can begin fielding to divisions is how fast the Army is modernizing the underlying hardware for all formations. The service’s G6 is undertaking an effort dubbed C2 Now that aims to replace all the legacy Warfighter Information Network-Tactical (WIN-T) equipment that is still in formations.
“That’s a 30-month plan to replace all the upper tactical internet capabilities across the force,” Taylor said. “In ’27 we’ll do the first division of production unit division, and then we’re also later this year, and really into ’27 is when the C2 Now or the hardware acceleration and tech, or transport acceleration efforts [will start].
“That will set conditions for where we’re going with full up Next Gen C2 because all the divisions will have that capability as soon as we field them the C2 Now capabilities. Right now, we’re targeted for one division in ’27 along with acceleration that is C2 Now,” he said.