“I’d like to see in a Harris administration, a commitment to the innovation reform agenda at DoD,” said HASC Ranking Member Rep. Adam Smith. “That really has, I think, stalled a little bit.”
By Valerie InsinnaInside the shift: Trump, defense, and the road to 2025
Big changes are coming to defense in 2025, but the specifics remain uncertain. Catch our highlights and predictions from 2024 in Breaking Defense’s year-end reflections.
“I call this the million monkeys at a typewriter,” CIA CTO Nand Mulchandani said. “You can’t pick the specific monkey that is going to crank out Shakespeare.”
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
“We’re still looking for the ability to translate and transition those innovation priorities into capabilities, into programs of record, into budget priorities,” said Rachel Hoff, Reagan Institute’s policy director and one of the authors of a new scorecard evaluating progress in defense innovation.
By Valerie Insinna
“I can’t really imagine a world where something like a Joint Strike Fighter program goes to a privately traded company,” Luckey told Breaking Defense. “I can’t imagine that ever happening.”
By Aaron Mehta
“The thing we haven’t done… [is] scale… and do it quickly, and that’s what we’re focused on now,” DIU chief Doug Beck said.
By Jaspreet Gill
“We’re not fighting [in] Ukraine with Silicon Valley right now, even though they’re going to try to take credit for it,” said Pentagon acquisition czar Bill LaPlante.
By Valerie Insinna
Harnessing data to power the future of space domain awareness
How cutting-edge technology from L3Harris is enabling rapid data processing—and faster, more informed decisions in space defense operations.
“My view isn’t like, I’m going to magically unlock special secret approaches that haven’t been touched before,” Deputy Defense Secretary Kath Hicks said Wednesday. “I think it’s more about how you start to shift the incentives”
By Valerie Insinna
Former Navy acquisition executive Hondo Geurts left government in August after Carlos Del Toro was confirmed as Navy secretary.
By Justin Katz “DIU is punching above its weight and having an impact beyond its size,” acquisition guru Bill Greenwalt says. “Still, that will not be enough…. Unless the rest of the Department and Congress learns these lessons, we will continue to fall behind China.”
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Victory lies not in the weapons themselves, Nand Mulchandani says, but in AI algorithms that advise commanders on how best to wield them.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
Because open-source software lacks the same kind of cyber certification that comes with more sensitive information, it is fertile ground for start-ups looking to work on military data, provided each service makes an open-source library available.
By Kelsey Atherton The dataset offers a window into not just the scale of tech involvement with the military, intelligence agencies, and federal law enforcement. It also highlights the size advantages that enable giants like HP, IBM, and Microsoft to navigate government contracting, while even explicitly military-friendly firms like Palantir and Anduril lag behind their more established peers.
By Kelsey Atherton
Despite past battles over Project Maven and other military uses of AI, “Google and many others” are now working with the Pentagon’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center, its new acting director says.
By Sydney J. Freedberg Jr.
“If we are to meet the innovation goals of the NDS, we must incentivize the primes to move beyond the short-term partnership model and encourage them to form more holistic relationships with promising early-stage companies, including investment into operating businesses,” writes Chip Walter.
By Chip Walter