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Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth announced on Monday a plan aimed at making the US a global leader in artificial intelligence, drones and space technology, saying a risk-averse culture has stifled innovation and prevented the Pentagon from providing the best services to its service members.
Hegseth was speaking with SpaceX CEO Elon Musk at the company’s headquarters in Brownsville, Texas, where he outlined a strategy to advance the Pentagon’s technology.
“Today we’re about how we charge for new things at the Department of Defense in the future,” Hegseth said in his remarks. “Innovation is happening at a speed that we can’t even foresee, and we need every company, our business, to embrace the urgency that is needed at this moment. Since the end of the Cold War, the base of the defense industry in our country has been united. This makes it difficult, if not impossible, for new creators of new technologies to win business in our department.”
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Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth spoke alongside SpaceX CEO Elon Musk at the company’s headquarters in Brownsville, Texas. (Getty Images / Getty Images)
“The result is a risk-averse culture that prevents us from providing our troops with the best services America can offer,” he continued. “That ends today. Simply put, the United States must win the strategic competition for technological superiority of the 21st century, artificial intelligence, autonomous systems, quantum hypersonics and long-range drones. If you talk to Elon Musk long enough, he will tell you how important hypersonics and long-range drones are. Direct, 0 and direct capabilities of Space 0. Biotechnology are the new areas of global competition.”
Hegseth announced an “AI acceleration strategy” that he said would extend the US lead in military AI established during President Donald Trump’s first administration.
“This strategy will open up testing, remove bureaucratic barriers, focus investment and demonstrate the approach needed to ensure we lead in military AI and that it grows stronger in the future,” he said. “In short, we will win the race to be the first AI battlefield in every domain, from the back offices of the Pentagon to the intelligent edges of the front lines.”
Pentagon chief Hegseth announced an “AI acceleration strategy” that he said would extend the US lead in military AI established during the Trump administration. (Getty Images / Getty Images)
The secretary added that “what will accelerate this will be seven pace-setting projects focused on warfighting, intelligence and business missions, each with a single leader, accountability, aggressive timelines and measurable results.”
He also said that consolidation of the US defense industry, which he said had “created a new closed system dominated by a handful of top contractors” would be phased out amid efforts to boost tech startups.
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Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth announced a plan aimed at making the US a world leader in AI, drones and space technology. (Getty Images / Getty Images)
“Today that old time is coming to an end,” he said. “The Department of Defense is reigniting the disruptive power and rapid creativity of our nation’s technology startups, fueled by our world’s leading marketplaces.”
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“For too long, we organized our ecosystem in silos, labs over here, so-called fast units over there, commercial accessibility in a different building or on another coast entirely, and warfighters somewhere in the end, almost as an afterthought. The result is repetition, drift and confusion,” continued Hegseth.
