The Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve, brainchild of Pentagon CTO Heidi Shyu, has funded low-profile but high-value niche technologies the services couldn’t or wouldn’t, from robot boats to a multi-domain targeting node.
Doug Beck, director of the DIU, said the department has “selected some systems already,” however “there’s other things that we are still kind of finalizing.”
Knowing when to build on commercial systems and when to develop something new can be the difference between parity and information dominance.
“The Moroccans are fully integrated” in the exercise, said Lt. Col. Aaron Ritzema, helping hunt simulated “enemy” transmitters with high-altitude balloons and four different types of drones.
The new Partnership for Indo-Pacific Industrial Resilience will “work through common acquisition and sustainment issues, whether it’s co-development, co-production [or] co-sustainment,” said Pentagon acquisition czar Bill LaPlante.
Congress needs to stop grilling Pentagon officials about the Pentagon’s plan to bulk-buy cheap unmanned weapons and start actually helping, the Deputy Secretary of Defense said: “We’ve done nearly 40 Hill briefings since last October, averaging almost one a week. …That depth of engagement isn’t scalable for Congress.”
“So the decision at the DMAG will be, should that be a single service, or [does] every service just buy what they want, right?” Heidi Shyu told reporters about the Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve.
Balancing security and access to data are critical to providing users with trustworthy, reliable data for real-time decisions.
"A path that I proposed is linking that together to show a portfolio of capabilities," Heidi Shyu said about a new AUKUS announcement. "So that will be coming out soon.”
"So we think we can actually help make it easier for you to be able to get after the key programs that the warfighter needs," Adm. John Acquilino said.