Traditionally, that meant collecting and sending data back to command facilities in Hawaii or the continental U.S. for analysis and response. But in fast-changing operational environments, that approach is quickly becoming outmoded and unreliable.

This scenario highlights both the challenge commanders face and the strategic shift underway across the military. The decisive advantage no longer rests solely on the movement of troops and materiel—but on the ability to move and process information faster, more securely, and with greater operational relevance than adversaries.

Achieving that kind of information advantage means being able to deliver real-time insights to warfighters in the field—especially in environments where communications are disconnected, disrupted, intermittent, or limited (DDIL). This isn’t just a technical upgrade; it’s a strategic imperative.

Underlying this shift is the growing expectation that actionable intelligence will reach those on the front lines faster than it reaches our adversaries. That expectation is driven in no small part by the commercial experience most consumers have become accustomed to – e.g., the ability to track deliveries en route and notifications when they arrive.  

Conflict planning and logistics in contested DDIL environments are obviously more complicated, which is all the more reason why the advantage lies with those who have an information advantage. That requires assessing, processing, and disseminating vast amounts of data quickly at the edge.

Gaining the data edge

“In many regards, data is the five-five-six round of the next war,” said John Sahlin, vice president for defense cyber solutions at General Dynamics Information Technology (GDIT), referring to the standardized rifle cartridge used by NATO forces. “It has become the lynchpin to enhance the decision-making process for advantage.”

That advantage depends on more than just collecting data. It requires turning it into usable intelligence faster than adversaries can react.

“The core problem is latency,” explained Matt Ashton, partner customer engineer at Google Public Sector. “Until recently, the immense volume of data from sensors, drones, and logistical trackers required the processing power and AI available primarily in distant cloud computing centers.”

“Our DOD customers struggle with the current status quo at the edge because they can’t run true AI,” said Ashton. “So data has to get sent back to the mother ship to crunch the data and get a resolution. The massive differentiator now is our ability to provide AI at the edge.”

According to both industry experts, the solution lies in a combination of powerful, ruggedized edge computing platforms and AI models specifically engineered for defense use that can operate independently, even when completely disconnected from high-capacity networks.

Google, for example, provides this capability through its Google Distributed Cloud (GDC), a platform designed to bring data center capabilities to the field.

“GDC was built to run so it never has to ‘call home.’ It can sit on the Moon or a ship. It doesn’t have to get updates,” Ashton said. “It’s a family of solutions that includes a global network, but also features an air-gapped GDC box that connects to the Wide Area Network and other on-prem servers not on the internet.”

This allows commanders on submarines, at remote bases, or in forward-deployed positions to run AI and analytics locally and process vast sensor data streams in-theater without waiting on external links.

Why mission-specific AI models matter

However, raw computing power is only part of the equation. Commercial AI models often lack a nuanced understanding of military operations. This is where operationally relevant AI models developed by GDIT that translate raw data into relevant, actionable intelligence are crucial.

Sahlin compared the role of mission-specific AI models to a speedometer in a car. “What it measures is the revolutions per minute of the axle. What it reports is how fast you’re going in miles per hour,” he explained. “That’s the kind of insight that only comes from real-world familiarity with military operations.”

“A clear grasp of operational objectives is key to developing models that are tuned to real-world demands of each mission,” said Sahlin. “So that may mean multiple mini-models to translate data into relevant insights.”

Sahlin also explained why applications built on an open data architecture model are crucial to adaptability at the edge.

“The real value of an open data architecture, particularly in the defense industry, is that it’s a very decentralized platform. Logistics is a classic example of commercial, local, last-mile delivery providers working with many sources. In the military, you won’t have a single source or model. This is where open architecture is critical.”

Security remains foundational to all of this. Sahlin noted that while the military can benefit from commercial innovation, it still needs to ensure higher levels of security than commercial operators. So it’s also essential that the military’s AI development partners have a deep understanding of the Defense Department’s zero trust security practices and requirements, which apply to the broader base of defense suppliers in the DOD’s supply chain.

“GDIT’s value lies in its longstanding experience supporting defense missions,” Sahlin said. “We work with clients to gather the right data, build tailored models, and deliver intelligence to the edge, even in DDIL conditions where units may be disconnected or intentionally silent.”

Looking ahead

By combining a platform like GDC with mission-specific AI models from GDIT, military logistics teams can move from reactive support to proactive planning, anticipating needs, reallocating resources, and outmaneuvering adversaries.

As operational demands grow more complex and communications become more contested, defense leaders say gaining an information advantage at the edge isn’t just important, it’s essential for mission success.

Learn more about how GDIT and Google Distributed Cloud can help your organization deliver at the edge more proactively.

This article was sponsored by GDIT and Google Cloud.

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“It’s about bringing all of those traditionally stovepiped elements together — and employing them at different times and in new and innovative ways,” Col. Michael McFeeters, chief of Transcom’s special activities division, told DefenseScoop last week.

During an exclusive tour of the command’s headquarters at Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, he and other officials shared new details regarding ongoing efforts to fuse information operations with cyber operations in Transcom’s non-kinetic arsenal, and some of the latest trends they are observing from U.S. adversaries in cyberspace.  

“A lot of this is intel-driven to wherever the threats are. And what threats are we talking about? Are we worried about China, Iran, Russia? Because they’re very, very different in how they conduct themselves and how they execute operations to contest logistics or the battle space that we’re trying to operate in through. So, you know, we have to … think differently based on whatever adversary where we’ll go up against,” McFeeters explained.

Transcom is a functional combatant command charged with executing global logistics and the transport of personnel and equipment for the Department of Defense and its components. 

The command relies heavily on data, digital systems and commercial partners to meet its mission, all of which requires significant cybersecurity protections.

“We’ve tried to change the way we do cyber operations. In the past, Transcom really focused on just the stuff that we own and operate. But the joint deployment distribution enterprise is a global enterprise,” said Patrick Grimsley, director of Transcom’s J6 command, control, communications and cyber systems directorate.

Over the last few years, command officials have expanded operations and been moving to better ensure they can present senior decision-makers with the greatest understanding of existing and emerging cyber risks — beyond the elements they operate within the DOD Cyber Defense Command (formerly known as the Joint Force Headquarters-DOD Information Network, or JFHQ-DODIN). 

“We’re also becoming a lot more active in information operations. So not just looking at cyber in and of itself, but it’s really cyber is part of the non-kinetic portfolio. So how do we fight through or combat some of the threats that are coming at us, again, outside the things that just Transcom controls? And how do we integrate and work with the other combatant commands to do that, too?” McFeeters said.

“I’d say the majority of what Transcom does is defensive cyber operations. And this is part of thinking in a new way [about] how we leverage the IO side of that to help execute Transcom’s mission,” he added.

Information operations involve the employment of capabilities to influence adversaries’ decision-making and protect friendly forces.

“[U.S] adversaries, they’re all out there — and their focuses are very different. Like, Russia is still focused right now on being able to understand and predict when aid and munitions are crossing the border to get into Ukraine, so they can interdict it before they actually get into the hands of the fighters … who can then employ those. China — completely different. China is just trying to get into everything [in cyberspace]. They’re not facing that same existential threat that Russia is. So, they’re playing more of a wait-and-see, and let’s get in there and have effects ready to shut down systems or critical infrastructure,” McFeeters told DefenseScoop.

DOD leadership expects all military and civilian components to follow its zero-trust cybersecurity framework to protect critical national security data and information. As its name suggests, the zero-trust concept presumes all networks are compromised from the get-go.

“You won’t always be able to keep the bad guys out of everything, right? You have to assume they’re there. But I would say that’s where, by bringing together those non-kinetic disciplines becomes important, [for] intelligence and awareness. For instance, if the bad guys get into one of our systems and we know they’re there, we may not want to kick them out. We may want to take advantage of that,” McFeeters said. “And as long as we know where they’re at and we’re confident they have not laterally maneuvered in that space, we may intentionally start putting stuff into that system so they will see or think something that is not reality.”

When asked for an example, he pointed to a scheduling system Transcom might rely on to coordinate deliveries.

“We may put false schedules in there, right? So that if an adversary is watching and they think something is going to go out of a certain place at a certain time, carrying certain goods, that may not be the case. We have done that in the real world before. We will do that again,” McFeeters said.

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She responded: “I mean, the stuff that just catches everyone’s imagination is we want to make stuff that we’ll need where we are going to need it — so making food out of plastic, or food out of thin air.”

Although the DARPA chief did not provide additional details then, a spokesperson later confirmed that Tompkins was referring to two different programs that fall within the agency’s Biological Technologies Office: Cornucopia and ReSource.

Experts involved with Cornucopia are working to enable the on-demand production of appetizing, microbial-origin food using water, air, and electricity. Those participating in ReSource are pursuing efforts to make food and other products (like lubricants, adhesives, tactical fibers, and potable water) from plastics and other military waste.

In recent, separate interviews, the two program managers overseeing Cornucopia and ReSource briefed DefenseScoop on their teams’ latest research findings and results. They each also highlighted how this work contributes to an overarching DARPA mission to help “de-risk logistics” associated with supplying food and other key items to troops in remote and dangerous locations.

“We’re always concerned about the warfighter, and there’s this whole concept of what we call contested logistics — and having access to materials at the point of need is a huge issue,” Dr. Leonard Tender, who leads ReSource, told DefenseScoop.

Cornucopia

Putting it simply, bio-manufacturing and bio-technologies are associated with a broad range of techniques, processes, and capabilities that use living organisms or biological systems to generate various products.

“I think a lot of people focus on bio-manufacturing as making small molecules. But food is a product, right?” Dr. Matthew Pava, the DARPA program manager in the biotechnology office who oversees the Cornucopia effort, told DefenseScoop. 

“Cornucopia is sort of envisioning an opportunity to create food — maybe from a less obvious source — which is microorganisms,” he explained.  

The greater aim of the program, according to Pava, is to demonstrate a system that can produce a “biomass” within a 24-hour period that can serve as a food source to sustain 14 warfighters for a single day.

“So the idea on this program is to stick, essentially, gasses — like air, that contains some carbon dioxide, a lot of nitrogen, or an exhaust stream from something like a generator, which you’re probably going to have in a [deployed situation]. Placing those gas sources into chemicals like microorganisms, simple organic molecules, sugars — performers are taking different approaches to that — but that’s where the system starts. And then the sugars need to basically get consumed by the organisms that ultimately will be your biomass,” Pava explained. 

When it first launched several years ago, Cornucopia was designed to answer fundamental research questions about whether it is possible to use such engineered microorganisms to grow a biomass (or constellation of cells) that was edible — flavorful — and could sustain military personnel.

As the first phase of the program was being conducted, researchers involved initially focused on synthesizing flavor molecules to generate a “super tasty biomass, where we could tune a flavor profile to be whatever you wanted it to be,” Pava said. 

“What was found in the first part of the program is that, first of all, that’s a really, really hard problem. Because what gives food flavor is not usually singular molecules, but it’s a profile of a large set of molecules in a very particular ratio with one another,” he said.

Therefore trying to engineer the metabolism of an organism to very precisely tune the production of each one of those molecules and get that right each and every time “is a pretty significant challenge in and of itself,” the program manager explained.

Further, the organisms don’t just produce the flavor molecules that humans want them to — they also create other molecules for their own metabolism and individual purposes, which can create off-putting flavors.

Based on such learnings in phase 1, those involved re-scoped Cornucopia to create a “blank-space” biomass that contains all the macro- and micronutrients warfighters need to be considered “nutritionally complete” by operation standards and has no taste until flavor molecules are introduced.

“And the reason why the blandness is important is because it’s really not so difficult to add flavor. It’s a lot harder to take flavor out of something. You can think about if you over-salt the soup that you’re making. To take the salt back out of the soup is a little bit more challenging than if you were adding more salt to it,” Pava said.

An example of how this work “might play out,” he added, is that teams involved could create a healthy biomass powder that can transform into a food product — “like a pudding, or shake, or jerky,” as Pava put it — and then adding “a flavor packet” to it that inspires the flavor profile or taste of a specific dish.

The scientist noted that actually creating solid food items with texture like jerky would be extremely difficult. However, Pava noted, DARPA’s “intention is to shift possible.”

He and his colleagues engaged with Army Soldier Centers and others developing food rations for the military to inform their work. One element that really stood out to Pava in those conversations was how much food’s purpose “isn’t just sustaining the warfighter — but it’s also a comfort,” he said.

“So there’s this important psychological aspect of it as well, which is really why food is sort of a complicated topic. You could imagine somebody that has to operate abroad in tough circumstances, and they’re relying on a platform to produce food for them. It would be ideal if, in a moment, they could say, ‘Today, I really feel like eating something that tastes like chicken or eating something that tastes like beef,’” Pava told DefenseScoop.

While what DARPA is trying to make would be healthier, he likened the aims to contemporary ramen noodle dishes that come with various packs of flavor powders.

“From a repurposability standpoint, I can make that taste like many, many different things, but ultimately it’s the same product that you need,” Pava said.

DARPA has two teams on contract for Cornucopia: one from SRI International, and the other from the University of Illinois, Urbana. While the originally planned program was structured across three stages, it was re-scoped down to only two. The second phase recently kicked off and there’s about one-and-a-half years left of work anticipated in the pursuit.

“One of the other things that we added in phase 2 is the revised tasking for our performers. We’re now asking them to seek [Food and Drug Administration] certification … that will greatly facilitate the ability of doing a human study, to taste this biomass” down the line, Pava said. 

ReSource

DARPA’s ReSource effort, which recently concluded after unfolding over the last four years, broadly encompassed work to create “on-demand” products — like lubricants, adhesives, tactical fibers, potable water, and edible macronutrients — on the battlefield by engineering them in self-contained units from feedstock collected there, onsite.

In a recent interview, Leonard Tender, the program manager who led ReSource in DARPA’s Biological Technologies Office, told DefenseScoop the ultimate aim was solving “two really hard problems at once.” 

“The first hard problem is: How do you deal with mixed plastic waste, paper waste in particular, which are a huge problem in general, but also for the military — especially when you’re in a forward deployed situation, or off the beaten path, and you have a lot of this material — how do you get rid of it responsibly? And a lot of times the logistics of getting that material off base and handling it requires extensive transport chains and high expenses,” Tender said.

The other difficult challenge envelops all that it takes for critical materials — and in particular, fuels, oils, lubricants and food — to be supplied into austere conflict environments. 

“So the notion is that we can connect the two — and that is, convert waste materials into those useful materials. Then you’re not worrying about getting those waste materials off-site, and you’re not worrying about bringing those useful materials on-site. You’re just converting one to the other,” Tender explained.

DARPA leadership selected performer teams from Battelle, Iowa State University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Michigan Technological University to support the ReSource program. Each team opted to tackle the program differently in terms of execution.

Broadly, the challenge directed those involved to explore and establish a low-power means to transform trash and no-longer-usable objects into food and other items within a self-contained, transportable unit that is smaller than a few cubic meters, roughly the size of a pickup truck. 

When asked by DefenseScoop what the simplest way to describe this work would be, Tender said: “We’re converting waste to value.”

“It’s very exciting to be at this point and to actually see these ideas come to fruition — at least, in the prototype form — where we actually have these built-out shipping containers, essentially that are doing the process and we actually feed in the waste one side and at the other side, you can imagine, like a spigot, where you know your outcomes are oil, your lubricant, or pancake-like bacteria that can be used by itself or to supplement food,” he explained.

On the heels of this success, the agency is now exploring transition opportunities for the technologies developed — and engaging with potential sponsors involved in more advanced research development who’ve expressed interest in driving further innovation around these concepts.

Many DARPA programs result in new technologies, concepts, and development pathways via the commercial sector for dual-use capabilities.

“The ability to convert waste materials into single-cell protein, for example, could be very impactful in the commercial sector. And so our teams are working with entrepreneurs to do that,” Tender explained.

“DARPA doesn’t like to make products that people go and buy. Our goal is to sort of de-risk the original concept — and we have done that,” he added.

De-Risking at DARPA

As the Defense Department’s top research and development hub, DARPA is deliberate and strategic about de-risking new technologies and emerging concepts to motivate the private sector and others to invest in further product development.

“Taking the de-risk idea, we think in terms of technology readiness levels, or TRLs. So at DARPA, it very typically starts at a very low number, where someone has sort of a glimmer of an idea and might have a couple of results from literature that says it’s possible, but it’s never been really attempted — then to take it to a higher level idea where you kind of like demonstrated it in a prototype form, and that’s where we are right now” with ReSource, Tender said. 

“And then there’s other sponsors to take it from the prototype form out to something that can actually be implemented, provided to the warfighter or commercialized. And so we have a lot of interest from those follow-up transition partners,” he noted.

Pava, Cornucopia’s program manager, put it another way: “Being DARPA, we’re trying to de-risk that first, critical, super hard step, and then we’re going to need to bring in transition partners [from across the military] that we hand the baton off to.”

In their separate conversations with DefenseScoop, both program managers suggested that their teams are taking an aggressive approach to de-risking solutions that might be useful in addressing significant military logistical burdens. 

“Getting food to the warfighter, especially if they’re in a location that has a very, very long logistic tail associated with it, is a challenge,” Pava said. 

He noted the power of potentially enabling new capabilities that could lead to one day having modular units that could be deployed alongside service members to provide food and sustenance at the precise place where it’s required. 

“So, you could capture carbon from air or gaseous waste, like generators’ exhaust, you can pull nitrogen out of the air and fix that and then grow up a biomass on that carbon or nitrogen, for instance, as opposed to having to ship pallets, on pallets, on pallets of [Meal, Ready-to-Eats or] MREs to tier warfare, which might not be possible,” he said.

“It’s not [about] ‘sustainment,’ I think, as we typically think of sustaining large infrastructure. But it’s sustaining our people in very particular circumstances where we’re asking them to do really hard and dangerous stuff,” Pava added. 

In a recent email after the interviews were conducted, DARPA Director Stefanie Tompkins told DefenseScoop that the agency is also thinking seriously about supply chain resiliency from multiple different angles — and that’s “all driven by our program managers” like Pava and Tender.

“Along with making food, extracting water, and producing medicine when and where we need it, we’re modeling complex global supply chains to understand where the weaknesses are. And when there are things we just can’t make at the point of need, we’re looking at new ways to revolutionize delivery and transport,” Tompkins said. 

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In recent years, the Corps has been undergoing a transformation in pursuit of Force Design 2030, which includes acquiring cutting-edge tech and jettisoning older platforms, such as tanks.

However, “there’s a lot of work there to do, more work in front of us [when it comes to] littoral mobility, artificial intelligence to improve battlefield decision-making, resilient sustainment webs in a contested environment — all of that and so much more,” Berger said Tuesday during a keynote address at the Modern Day Marine conference.

With a renewed focus across the U.S. military on great power competition in the Indo-Pacific region, the Marines are also trying to enhance their ability to conduct amphibious operations.

“Unmanned surface and subsurface craft — we’ve got to make up ground there both in the pre-landing, pre-assault and post” landing phases, Berger noted.

The Corps needs to look at incorporating robotic systems “from the very beginning,” including for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) efforts, such as hydrographic surveys and meteorological surveys and overhead watch.

“I think that’s where it begins — the pre-assault, pre-amphibious landing, [determining] what do the potential beaches look like, what does it look like inland? All that unmanned as much as possible,” he told DefenseScoop at the conference.

The next stage is moving units, supplies and equipment from ship to shore via what Marines call “connectors.”

If uncrewed platforms can’t help with that, “then we’re just stuck with the LCAC [landing craft air-cushion platforms] cycling back and forth, back and forth, back and forth [to drop off and pick up materiel]. If that’s your limiting factor, how can you augment that with unmanned craft? How could you triple, in other words, the volume of equipment and the space that you can do it using unmanned?” Berger said.

Once troops push inland from the beaches after landing, rotary-wing drones could potentially help transport supplies and equipment to them from ships at sea, so the Marine Corps wouldn’t have to rely on manned aircraft such as CH-53K helicopters, he noted.

There are two key reasons for using unmanned platforms as much as possible for amphibious ops, according to Berger. “One, why put a human there if a machine can do just the same? And two, you can generate a lot more tempo, cover a lot more territory if you’re combined unmanned and manned,” he explained.

“How much of all that can be done unmanned — all of it from the pre-assault all the way through, I think, through the sustainment, all of that? Lots to learn for us. We don’t know where it leads us, but the potential is there,” Berger said.

The Corps also needs Marines who are knowledgeable about AI, he suggested. The service earlier this year established its first-ever software factory in Austin, Texas, to enhance its in-house software development capability.

“I don’t know if we need to expand the software factory, but I think it’s becoming more apparent that there will probably be a need to … code at the edge. I think that’s becoming more and more likely. There will be reach-back capability, but I think to do our reconnaissance [and] counter-reconnaissance effort, it will very likely mean that we have to code forward,” Berger said.

AI and machine learning could serve as decision aids for Marines and assist with targeting. But Berger emphasized the need to pursue the technology for logistics.

For example, predictive maintenance is one area where the aviation component is ahead of other elements of the Marine air-ground task forces, he noted.

“Artificial intelligence can help us in readiness, in mobility, in sustainment, in all of the functions of logistics. And we can do that in a way that enables us to sustain the force better than we can do it today. So, I think artificial intelligence will help in fires, it will help as a decision-making tool. But where we apply it will matter. And I think those of us who believe that contested logistics is a huge driver in how we’re going to operate in the future, we need to apply artificial intelligence to that function of warfare,” Berger said.

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AI and other automated technologies can not only help agencies address these ongoing security challenges, but they can also augment personnel in managing contested logistics effectively. Here are four promising applications of AI to enhance the resilience and efficiency of defense logistics operations within contested environments: forecast demand, route planning, threat detection, and joint information sharing.

Forecasting Demand to Inform Allocation

Predictive analytics can help assist in forecasting the potential demand for critical supplies. Using AI-powered analytics, DoD leaders can analyze historical data—including operational patterns, previous shipments, mission details, and more—to better understand the volume, frequency, and end locations of shipments, and thus predict future needs. Leveraging this info, logisticians can make more informed decisions regarding the defense supply chain, properly allocating critical resources to be shipped to the appropriate theater.

Automate and Adapt Route Planning

AI-powered autonomous systems can help address critical tasks in logistics planning, including route planning, fleet management, and resupply operations. Algorithms can analyze data from sensors, satellites, and drones in real-time to identify disruptive events and dynamically adapt logistics operations to reroute the transportation of resources to sites. Further, autonomous systems, notably unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), can be used to help physically transport the required materials, avoiding risk to human personnel and ensuring the delivery of essential resources to deployed forces.

Minimize Disruptions to the Defense Supply Chain

As defense agencies are expected to remain agile and adaptable in the face of modern warfare, it’s critical that defense logisticians see and address concerns before they cause major disruptions. AI can enable advanced risk assessment and mitigation strategies within the military services. In particular, machine learning solutions can analyze large and disparate data sets to monitor the supply chain, identify patterns and potential risks, and help defense agencies proactively address vulnerabilities in logistics operations before they cause any major disruption. By detecting and responding to threats early on, AI can enable leadership to make faster, more informed decisions on what’s next, helping to safeguard operations and ultimately maintain the integrity of defense supply chains.

Joint Force Collaboration

AI and automation can also support collaboration and communication amongst joint forces—both within the U.S. military and with its allied partners. If granted appropriate access through programs like JADC2, AI-enabled systems can automatically report on the inventory of certain assets, challenges in transporting materials across specific domains, and recent patterns of disruption to the defense supply chain, including internal, environmental, and adversarial threats. Further, tools like natural language processing can extract insights from this shared intelligence to enable joint leadership to make faster, better-coordinated decisions.

The opportunities for AI to support military logistics, especially in contested environments, are considerable—and while some services are more advanced in their adoption of AI-enabled tools for logistics operations, others may be wary due to the continuous concerns around cybersecurity and ethics. Continued conversations on governance and accountability are essential pieces of this puzzle and must be held at the leadership level, but in order to ease further concerns, it’s also important for military services to look at organizations already implementing AI for logistics in the commercial sector.

Some of the world’s largest organizations utilize AI to optimize their logistics efforts and build resiliency, and they’ve tested and refined strategies to safeguard their supply chains through the technology. By replicating these efforts for the defense sector and taking full advantage of AI’s ability to predict, automate and manage processes, military services can begin to revolutionize their logistics operations. 

As the DoD continues to explore using AI in its operations, we should expect to see continued improvements in logistics efficiency and effectiveness, making it more effective for U.S. forces to operate in contested environments and best defend the nation.

Art Sellers is Director of Army Programs at SparkCognition Government Systems. He previously served for more than 27 years as a U.S. Army infantry officer.

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During his confirmation hearing in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee on Tuesday, Gen. Eric Smith told lawmakers that the rights to technical data and IP are crucial to some of his plans to deploy additive manufacturing capabilities to forward operating areas in order to improve how the Marine Corps conducts logistics in contested and dispersed environments in the Indo-Pacific.

“When we own … the [technical] data rights to things we procure, I can build and print aircraft engines forward. When you can do that, that is an entire supply chain that is relieved of some stress, and it gets the engine into the hands of the warfighter today — not weeks from now,” Smith said. “You can pre-stage those metals and bring with you the 3D printer. That is in our future and if confirmed, I’m focused on that.”

Currently serving as assistant commandant, Smith was nominated by Biden last month to take over the service’s top job when Gen. David Berger’s term ends later this year. If confirmed, Smith will be tasked with leading the Marine Corps through a plethora of modernization efforts currently underway, including Force Design 2030, Talent Management 2030 and the “stand-in forces” concept.

Smith told lawmakers that he’s “100% committed” to ensuring the Corps acquired the intellectual property and technical data rights of its platforms if he becomes commandant.

The concern over technical data rights and intellectual property was heightened by the Defense Department’s acquisition of the F-35 joint strike fighter. The Pentagon has argued that prime contractor Lockheed Martin’s ownership of the fighter jet’s IP — from software to spare parts — has limited the U.S. military’s ability to integrate new technologies and conduct maintenance on the aircraft.

Now, both officials in the Pentagon and members of Congress have become mindful of how IP and technical data ownership influences defense acquisition programs.

For the Marine Corps, ownership over technical data and IP would permit unrestricted access to the information needed to 3D print key parts for forces deployed in the Indo-Pacific — one of Smith’s top priorities if he were to become commandant, he said.

Also known as additive manufacturing, 3D printing is a technique that allows people to create three-dimensional objects using data in computer-aided-design software or special scanners. The Defense Department has increasingly invested in advancing the technology for military use as it confronts constraints on global supply chains. The Pentagon is also concerned that long logistics lines could come under attack by China or not move materiel fast enough during a conflict.

“We have to do some very creative work to do additive manufacturing and 3D printing forward,” Smith said, referring to work being done by the Marine Corps Warfighting Lab to innovate contested logistics capabilities. “If confirmed, I’m committed to continuing that effort, because I do see one day we will be printing forward, and forward operating bases will be printing major end items [such as] aircraft engines, propellers. We’ll be doing that forward as opposed to straining lines that come from the United States through contested logistics areas.”

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Since its inception in the mid-20th century, DARPA has helped generate many of the capabilities that transformed the U.S. military and in some cases, the civilian world, including stealth tech, precision weapons, the internet and GPS, to name just a few.

At the annual DefenseTalks conference Thursday hosted by DefenseScoop, DARPA chief Stefanie Tompkins was asked to identify some of the potentially transformational technologies that her program managers are working on today.

One of those tech areas is “fundamentally secure software and hardware,” she noted.

“Everyone here I’m sure loves the experience of changing your password every three months and being told you can’t write it down and every password has to be different. And so of course we all violate those rules because … we have no way to keep up,” Tompkins said. “So, imagine a world in which you just didn’t have to do that, and all … software and systems and devices were inherently secure. [There are] lots of ways to do that both algorithmically and in hardware as well. And we’re working on multiple ways to do that.”

Another “problem area” highlighted by Tompkins that DARPA is pursuing breakthroughs for is supply chains. The push comes as U.S. military leaders are worried that the flow of critical items to its troops could be cut off in a potential war with China across long distances in the Indo-Pacific, given Beijing’s long-range, precision weapons and other so-called anti-access, area-denial tools.

“One [capability that DARPA is pursuing] is making what you need, where you need it. And that includes medicine, food, water, energetic materials — just about anything — so that you can at least free yourself up from some of the significant logistical burdens that we face today,” Tompkins told DefenseScoop.

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The deal with the Maryland-based company includes the production and delivery of 21 TRV-150C Tactical Resupply Unmanned Aircraft Systems (TRUAS) and 12 months of systems engineering program management services in support of the Navy and Marine Corps Small Tactical Unmanned Aircraft Systems program office, according to the announcement.

Work is expected to be completed in March 2024. Naval Air Systems Command is the contracting activity.

The contract award announcement came after the technology was again demonstrated at Marine Corps Base Quantico, Virginia, last month.

“TRUAS is designed to provide rapid and assured, highly automated aerial distribution to small units operating in contested environments; thereby enabling flexible and rapid emergency resupply, routine distribution, and a constant push and pull of material in order to ensure a constant state of supply availability,” Master Sgt. Chris Genualdi, an air delivery specialist with Marine Corps Combat Development and Integration, said in an April 11 news release.

The quadcopter uses waypoint navigation based on pre-programmed coordinates to get where it needs to go, and it can transport a 150-pound payload of supplies over 9 miles. Marines can be trained to operate and perform field-level maintenance on the system in just five days, per Genualdi.

In a product description on its website, the Survice Engineering Co. describes the unmanned aerial vehicle as “the truck of the UAV world, carrying anything that will fit under the skids.”

The system recently completed a successful three-year joint capability technology demonstration effort called Unmanned Logistics System – Air (ULS-A), according to the company.

The Marine Corps is planning to create a Small Unmanned Logistics System – Air Specialist military occupational specialty to handle these types of systems.

However, Genualdi also “believes this is an innovation that will affect more than small scale resupply missions and its success at this level will allow this technology to be scaled to larger platforms that will be critical in the strategic execution of Expeditionary Advanced Base Operations,” according to the release.

The TRUAS is expected to reach initial operating capability later this year.

“Fielding this capability is a critical step in setting conditions for the development of the ULS-A Medium system, which is the required capability for large-scale tactical distribution in a contested space,” according to a March 29 Marine Corps release.

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With aims to “embrace the challenge of contested logistics,” Wormuth said Monday at the Association of the United States Army’s annual convention in Washington, the command will soon leverage experimentation, war games, and exercises in new ways. 

“This effort will bring together our logistics community with the commercial sector to look at our requirements and focus on the opportunities presented by autonomous distribution, energy-efficient combat systems, and predictive data analytics,” she explained. 

Wormuth’s comments Monday came as the Army recently announced big plans to become a more data-centric force operationally by the end of the decade. 

Some progress has been made in prototyping and building new technologies with military and commercial partners over the last year, in particular, according to the secretary. She noted that her team is “already signing contracts to begin low rates of initial production” on some emerging technologies associated with logistics. 

During a media briefing after her keynote, Wormuth provided reporters with more details on this new command-led work. 

The Indo-Pacific “is the most demanding theater” for the military currently, she noted, “because of the distances involved, and all of the, you know, obvious reasons,” she said, likely referring to the evolving conflict landscape and tensions with China. She sees room for better collaboration with industry and a need to explore how automation and predictive analytics can support such logistics and sustainment operations. 

“We are doing more and more every day to use data more effectively,” Wormuth told DefenseScoop during the briefing — but she confirmed that she is not yet satisfied with how the service is using data as a strategic asset.

“I see it in all sorts of ways. Army Materiel Command, I think, has done a tremendous job to really improve our ability to see our inventory of infrastructure, for example, using data. I was just over in Germany with the 18th Airborne Corps, and the way that we’re using data and [artificial intelligence] there is tremendous,” she noted. “But, you know, we have so much more to do, especially when you compare us to the private sector.” 

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The RDER initiative — a top priority for Pentagon leaders — will initially fund 32 prototype demonstrations based on technology needs identified by combatant commanders, Joint Staff, Office of the Secretary of Defense and the military branches. The DOD requested about $70 million for the effort in fiscal 2023, and it plans to spend $377 million over the next five years. The Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering is leading the effort.

The upcoming confab, which will be held at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory in Laurel, Maryland, “is an opportunity for industry to learn about the RDER effort’s vision, proposal cycle, technical priorities, capability challenges, and opportunities that require private-sector support,” the Defense Department said in a press release.

The event will include classified briefings on the RDER program, proposal criteria, and technology capability requirements, as well as “breakout sessions” where companies can discuss their proposals with program officials.

Advance registration is required, and the response due date is July 20, according to the industry engagement day announcement published on Sam.gov.

“RDER will spearhead efforts to develop capabilities that support the joint warfighter, including, but not limited to, fires, command and control, logistics, and capabilities that will drive information advantage. These efforts will culminate with multi-competent experiments that combine multiple prototypes and capabilities to expeditiously explore new concepts and create new capabilities,” according to the release.

The Pentagon hopes that the initiative will lead to rapid procurement and fielding of some of the technology showcased during the demonstrations.

“If it has utility, the [combatant commanders] can come back and say, ‘Look, I need 5,000 of this [product].’ Then, we have to be able to get into rapid fielding,” Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Heidi Shyu told reporters late last year. “That’s exactly the path we’re heading towards.”

The first RDER technology “sprint” is slated for fiscal 2023. The Pentagon plans to conduct at least two “sprints” per year beginning in fiscal 2024.

“I can tell you we’re working very diligently to make sure once the FY ‘23 money shows up, we will be sprinting,” Shyu said in May at the Special Operations Forces Industry Conference.

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