US military opening up to defence and weapons start-ups as evolving technology begins to transform modern warfare
“We were 10 years ahead,” says Jenkins, the start-up’s chief executive, arguing that his company is a “good example of where commercial tech is so much more advanced and more nimble” than the systems being developed by the US military.It is a blueprint that could prove crucial for the US as it races to evolve its defence strategy from a reliance on heavy hardware such as tanks, ships and aircraft to more nimble investments in disruptive systems.
“For the first time ever, the US military is dependent on commercial tech to win a war, but they’re not organised to deal with commercial tech,” says Steve Blank, a tech veteran and founding member of the Gordian Knot Center at Stanford, which was set up to train innovators in national security. A small group of start-ups has reaped some rewards. Six of them – ShieldAI, Hawkeye 360, Anduril, Rebellion Defense, Palantir Technologies and Epirus – have been valued at more than $1 billion . Only a handful of aerospace or space companies that provide defence capabilities have attracted colossal investment, such as Elon Musk’s SpaceX, which is nearing a valuation of $150 billion.
The framework is designed to acquire physical assets such as aircraft parts and tanks, but critics say it is unsuitable for the kind of software that is set to revolutionise future warfare. It takes about two years to land a serious contract, a timescale that has pushed many inventors into the so-called valley of death in which desirable prototypes are lost because the companies behind them wither and die while waiting to win work.
“What’s happened in Ukraine has been a game-changer. More commercial technology is being used than during any other conflict,” says Mike Brown, a venture capitalist at Shield Capital and the former director of the DIU. “That has got the wheels turning for the US military, which is saying, ‘We need to adopt far more of this’.
Several defence tech start-ups that harness the power of AI have already changed the way the US military gathers and deploys intelligence. Almost half of Palantir’s $1.9 billion revenues last year came from US government contracts, including to provide AI software that uses surveillance technology and data analytics to track and follow suspected terrorists, for example.
US start-ups including BlackSky, Capella and PlanetLabs – remote sensing companies that fuse AI and satellite technology to provide real-time detailed overhead images – have allowed Ukraine to pinpoint the precise location and status of advancing Russian convoys. Now they have prototype deals with the DIU.