“We will speed up the timeline of rapid innovation. We have to, on behalf of our warfighters, on behalf of the threats that we face around the globe, on behalf of the changing face of warfare,” Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said.

During the “Multi-Domain Autonomous Solutions” event in the Pentagon courtyard, Hegseth and other Defense Department leaders shared new details about their near-term plans to quickly and drastically enhance the military’s drone arsenal, and deepen partnerships with producers across the sprawling American industrial base as they confront a range of contemporary policy and supply chain challenges. 

Eighteen autonomous prototypes currently under accelerated development to support joint military operations were showcased at the event, which was hosted by the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. 

Some of those systems included the long-endurance unmanned aerial system with a 36-foot wingspan dubbed Vanilla and the Global Autonomous Reconnaissance Craft, or GARC — a small unmanned surface vehicle that can deploy independently or as a swarm.

“[This is] really a whole effort to sort of adapt to the current threat environment, which has changed in the last … year. And what you see here is a response to that. And you’ll see continued iterations — we are not stopping. This is just the beginning of what a rapid program looks like, and a rapid effort looks like,” Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Emil Michael told reporters.

The prototypes on display, he noted, went from concept to development in an average of 18 months.

“It’s an extraordinary achievement. This kind of thing was going to take five, six years,” Michael said.

It’s no secret that over the last half-decade, the U.S. military has increasingly faced serious challenges with buying, integrating and defending against unmanned systems. Further, while America has excelled at producing sophisticated, high-priced drones, the industrial base is struggling to compete with the proliferation of smaller and lower-cost systems being developed by China, Iran and other adversaries.

DOD leaders during the Biden administration launched the Replicator initiative in August 2023, with the overarching vision to accelerate industrial production and the military’s adoption of different drones in multiple combat domains through replicable processes by mid-2025. Future plans to continue or cancel that effort have not been revealed by Trump appointees to date.

“This is not the Replicator initiative,” Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Prototyping and Experimentation Alex Lovett said at the event. “The Replicator phase I tranche was looking at scaling. What we were able to do is — and you’ll see some of the platforms here were also participating in the evaluation of that — but our experimentation identified capabilities that were ready to scale for some of those.”

DOD’s new approach to “rapid prototyping experimentation,” according to Lovett, marks the institutionalization of the now defunct Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve (RDER), also set up under the Biden administration, to get new technologies in the hands of combatant command users as early as possible for testing and refinement.

“What we learned is: Yes, that is good and it is working. We don’t need a separate program telling me to go do RDER. We’ve adopted that and established [Mission Capabilities] under Mr. Michael as an entire directorate that does mission-based analysis, engineering experimentation, and operational assessment to facilitate the transition. So we’ve completely adopted that, and we’re continuing to do operational experimentation,” Lovett explained. 

Technology Readiness Experimentation (T-REX) events were a key component of those RDER pursuits in recent years. 

For now, the T-REX live-fire exercises and prototype demonstrations are set to continue to unfold at least twice a year to help military users assess the capabilities of new and innovative technologies for use in real-world operations.

“If you’re looking for a new initiative, part of this enabling of drone dominance [per Hegseth’s guidance] is the services now are standing up, [first-person view] drone schools and drone capabilities. At this next T-REX [in August], we will be starting to host ‘Top Gun’ school. We’re going to start playing red versus blue. Their best will come after our best defenses,” Lovett told DefenseScoop at the event.

“We are [also] looking at how to expand our T-REX too, in conjunction with NASA and the [Federal Aviation Administration] and the department. So again, across the whole federal government, that says we’re working together and breaking down the barriers,” he said.

All of the drones on display Wednesday already passed through the T-REX program and are being evaluated by the services for transition and fielding.

“What we’re trying to do is lower the barriers [and] invite more people in to do experimentation if they want to — but there’ll be other kinds of things [as well],” Michael said.

In his view, President Donald Trump’s recent drone-accelerating executive orders and Hegseth’s related memorandum will help address policy constraints and open the DOD’s aperture for drones and systems to accept.

“[They] say, ‘Hey, we’re open for business. We want your inventions. We want you to be qualified on our [Blue UAS] list, and we want the services to see what you can have — so you can build it, so that they can buy it,’” Michael said.

The undersecretary declined to comment on any forthcoming plans to change or cancel the 14 critical technology areas identified under the previous administration for strategic and focused investments. 

In response to questions from DefenseScoop on that topic, Michael responded: “It’s drone day!” 

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In a press release and conversations over email, officials unveiled a new prize challenge for low-cost sensing technologies to enhance counter unmanned aerial systems and — in partnership with the Joint Counter-small UAS Office — a new solicitation for “low-collateral defeat options” that can be quickly integrated into existing C-sUAS programs of record across the joint force via the Replicator initiative.

“DIU’s low-cost sensing prize challenge combined with the LCD [solicitation] are a part of the overall strategic push to get after the toughest challenges and most pressing C-UAS problems identified by the warfighter,” David Payne, the unit’s C-UAS program manager, told DefenseScoop.

The new announcement marks the latest move associated with the Defense Department’s high-stakes — but hush-hush — Replicator effort. 

DOD leadership under the Biden administration established Replicator in August 2023 as a key military technology and procurement modernization initiative. At the time, it was billed as a strategic campaign to confront China’s massive, ongoing military buildup by incentivizing U.S. industrial production capacity and the DOD’s adoption of advanced warfare technologies en masse — through replicable processes — at a much faster pace than has been achieved before.

Tranches within the first capability focus area, Replicator-1, broadly encompass the purchase and making of loitering munitions and other technologies associated with all-domain autonomous systems. In September 2024, Pentagon officials revealed plans to prioritize the high-volume production of C-UAS capabilities through Replicator-2.

In DIU’s press release, officials wrote that Replicator aims to “deliver strategic capability and to build new innovative muscle for” DOD, and that the forthcoming solicitation aligns with the Trump administration’s recent executive order entitled “Modernizing Defense Acquisitions and Spurring Innovation in the Industrial Base.” 

The solicitation will be open for submissions from industry through May 16. 

Officials also noted that the call for LCD capabilities is envisioned to supply the military with the “most effective defeat options” for increasingly complex and custom-built drones — and also “help to minimize risk to friendly forces, civilians, and infrastructure in the homeland and abroad.”

“North America faces a variety of non-traditional threats, and key among these is the use of small uncrewed aircraft systems operating near installations and critical infrastructure — addressing these threats is a top priority and essential task,” NorthCom Commander Gen. Gregory Guillot said in the press release. “Partnering with DIU to employ low-collateral defeat capabilities is one example of how we are developing the forward-looking capabilities and policies necessary to ensure a seamless and well-coordinated defensive enterprise.”

The call for capabilities will also build on other ongoing DOD technology-enabling efforts, including collaborative work with the United Kingdom.

A DIU spokesperson told DefenseScoop that this is the first time the unit launched a bilateral commercial solutions opening where the U.K. government’s Ministry of Defence was involved from the start. They also confirmed that this effort “is very much part of the new U.K. Defence Innovation organization that will officially be stood up in July.” 

“This is both nations leveraging the commercial sector to develop novel technology to solve a defense requirement,” the spokesperson said.

Regarding the separate prize challenge that DIU is also posting Monday, the official said that it seeks “to enhance the DOD’s [C-UAS] capabilities while addressing cost and scalability limitations associated with traditional radars, optical sensors, and radio frequency detection systems.”

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However, the billionaire investor stopped short of revealing any immediate plans to disrupt the Pentagon’s ongoing Replicator initiative, which includes efforts to field thousands of uncrewed systems by August 2025.

“If confirmed, I will work with the appropriate stakeholders to review the value of initiatives like Replicator,” Feinberg wrote in response to advance policy questions from the Senate Armed Services Committee ahead of his confirmation hearing Tuesday.

That answer came after lawmakers’ inquiry into whether “a separate process like Replicator [is] needed within DOD to address the most pressing investment areas,” or if the existing acquisition and management mechanisms are sufficient to confront contemporary urgent needs.

Feinberg noted that, in his view, Replicator “tailors the rapid acquisition pathway to ensure rapid acquisition and deployment for items urgently needed to react to an enemy threat or respond to significant and urgent safety situations.” 

“I believe the department must utilize all of the authorities available to acquire capabilities to meet the most pressing and urgent needs, to include the capabilities being accelerated through Replicator,” he wrote.

First unveiled by former deputy Pentagon chief Kathleen Hicks in August 2023, Replicator 1.0 was then billed as a key military technology and procurement modernization campaign designed to counter China’s massive, ongoing military buildup by incentivizing U.S. industrial production capacity and the military’s adoption of drones en masse — through replicable processes — at a much faster pace. DOD was largely secretive about the initiative since its inception.

DefenseScoop reported that the first two tranches of selections — dubbed Replicator 1.1 and 1.2 — encompassed a variety of maritime and aerial drones, and associated counter-drone assets selected for mass manufacturing. In September 2024, defense leadership announced that, building on that success and momentum, Replicator 2.0 would accelerate the high-volume production of technologies designed to detect and destroy enemy drones.

Since Trump was elected in November and tapped Feinberg to serve as the Pentagon’s No. 2, many questions have swirled regarding the new administration’s vision for Replicator and whether plans are in the works to transform or terminate it. 

Feinberg’s responses to lawmakers’ questions suggest his intent to continue to prioritize efforts to deliver capabilities to support the military’s most critical operational problems, at scale.

“My understanding is that the Replicator initiative has focused on two critical areas: Replicator-1 is focused on delivering thousands of all-domain attritable autonomous systems to [U.S. Indo-Pacific Command] to counter the pacing threat posed by the People’s Republic of China, and Replicator-2 is focusing on countering the threat posed by small unmanned aerial systems to our most critical installations and force concentrations. Both of these operational problems remain pressing challenges and, if confirmed, I will continue to ensure the department focuses on delivering innovative capabilities to warfighters in line with the secretary’s priorities of rebuilding our military and reestablishing deterrence,” he wrote.

The high-stakes initiative was not a major focus during Feinberg’s confirmation hearing. But in response to questions from Sen. Ted Budd, R-N.C., the nominee pledged to frequently brief and update Congress on the department’s plan for Replicator, and drones writ large.

“In regards to [threats from] swarming technology, Replicator’s a very important program,” Budd said.

At another point while testifying, Feinberg also emphasized that autonomous technologies and assets like those enabled by the pursuit will be vital to the U.S. military’s ability to deter foreign adversaries in the near term.

“Clearly, we need to develop autonomy — autonomy in significant numbers, with a centralized command, effectively ‘brain.’ And we have to make the right decision on whether we need to build a next-generation aircraft, or we can rely on autonomy. Of course, we’ve got to improve our shipbuilding. China is very strong there. Our nuclear capabilities are old, we have to upgrade them. And we have to develop hypersonics,” Feinberg told lawmakers.

A full Senate confirmation vote for Feinberg has not yet been scheduled.

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Sullivan shared new details about those takeaways and other defense-related discussions he’s engaging in amid the presidential transition — including the Pentagon’s fast-tracked drone-fielding initiative Replicator — with a small group of reporters at the White House on Wednesday. 

“[One] area where we’ve begun the process, where I think they need to move very rapidly, is in the integration of artificial intelligence capabilities into not just weapons systems, but everything — the back office, logistics and supply systems — all of it, basically,” he told DefenseScoop at the invite-only roundtable.

Broadly, the DIB encompasses the entities that provide the military with the material, products and services needed to deter and prevail in conflict and global competition. 

But beyond that, the Biden administration has also called on the DIB to produce those items for international partners currently engaged in warfare, including Ukraine and Israel — as well as Taiwan, for deterrence purposes. 

Sullivan noted that in his early months at the White House, his team was sharply focused on the U.S. evacuation from Afghanistan and “working through kind of setting up [the administration’s] strategy with respect to a lot of other significant issues in the world.”  

“So, DIB was not at the top of the list for me, walking in the door. And it was really the lead-up to the war in Ukraine in the fall of ‘21 that I began to recognize that, in many respects, the cupboard was bare,” Sullivan said.

Around that same time, the AUKUS trilateral security alliance between Australia, the U.K., and the U.S. was announced. Sullivan subsequently started looking into the submarine industrial base’s capacity for tasks associated with the partnership’s Pillar I aims.

“People would produce charts for me — basically going back to 1990 — the workforce challenges, the supply chain challenges, the under-investment. And it became clear to me that this has been a story that I don’t think has gotten the attention it’s deserved,” Sullivan explained.

Those experiences made him fully recognize what he called “the importance of a demand signal from the top.” 

During Sullivan’s tenure, Biden’s administration published the U.S.’s first National Defense Industrial Strategy and implementation plan to guide engagement, policy development, and investment in the DIB in the near term.

“Turning the vision into execution is difficult, and it takes persistence and repeat demand signal. And even then, you’re only going to get a portion of the things you are asking for. And so one of my pieces of advice for the incoming team is, right out of the gate, take this momentum that we’ve begun to build up and really push. Don’t kind of wait a year or two years on it. Let’s push now,” Sullivan said.

DefenseScoop asked the national security advisor to expand on some of the other tips he’s leaving behind to his counterparts in the Trump administration.

“One of the things that I have asked the incoming team to do is to take a brief on the elements of the defense industrial base that I’ve taken so that in the early weeks, they’re sort of fully up to speed on exactly what we’re still facing as deficits — with respect to subs, with respect to long-range strike. Those are two areas in particular that I would be focused on and that I told the next team to take a hard look at,” Sullivan said. 

On his way out, Sullivan said he’s also encouraging the incoming team to continue to focus on accelerating AI adoption across the Pentagon and military, which was also a top priority in Trump’s first administration.

“I think DOD is working that, but we have to go a lot further, a lot faster. So that’s another area that I’ve told the upcoming team to put attention to. We’ve got this national security memorandum. It has put out a lot of tasks for the defense enterprise. Those tasks are beginning to be completed, but that work is going to have to continue in a big way under the new team,” Sullivan told DefenseScoop. 

Also among what he considers to be the Biden administration’s DIB-enabling accomplishments is the long list of moves to support Ukraine’s military in response to Russia’s large-scale invasion.

“I think the single biggest thing about this war that we have not seen as acutely in previous conflicts is the need to constantly adapt and iterate — that it is a learning function on both sides. There’s an innovation in a capability, it produces great lethality. The other side adjusts, comes up with an electronic warfare solution to degrade that lethality, the other side then has to adjust. And so it’s war through some combination of technological adjustment and software update, and that is an unusual thing for people used to fighting a more static type of conflict,” Sullivan said.

The U.S., under Biden, committed to injecting more than $1.5 billion in multiple types of investments to help Ukraine get to a point where it can manufacture and produce drones at scale — steadily, during a still-unfolding war, he said.

“And the point that I’m trying to register for the incoming team is [that] whatever happens in Ukraine, the need for this sustained scale-up is there for U.S. deterrence and U.S. defense needs for this foreseeable future — and we just have to be able to somehow convert that reality into an actionable demand signal that industry can respond on,” Sullivan told reporters. 

Applying lessons learned from Ukraine domestically, the administration held what Sullivan called a “first-of-its-kind conference” with officials from across the U.S. combatant commands and Pentagon acquisition components “to take stock of, essentially, where does this UAV component fit into the future of warfare.”

Biden appointees leading the Pentagon launched the high-profile Replicator initiative to accelerate the delivery of next-generation warfighting technologies in repeatable processes — beginning with thousands of drones to be fielded by August 2025 to counter China’s growing military build-up. 

“The idea is basically to learn a lot of the lessons that we’ve seen over the course of the past couple of years from Ukraine,” Sullivan noted.

He declined to give reporters a precise timeline for Replicator system deployment plans but expressed confidence that it would carry on as a priority initiative in the Trump administration.

“I have no reason to believe the new team is going to say, ‘Nope, we’re going to take that away.’ You’d have to ask them, but I think that that has a momentum of its own that can and should continue,” Sullivan said.

To date, Trump’s team has not disclosed whether they aim to cut, keep or modify Replicator. Spokespersons from his transition team did not respond to DefenseScoop’s request for comment before publication.

“What’s interesting to me is that if the U.S. actually went to war tomorrow — itself — I think that the pace of change would iterate much more rapidly. So, the possibility that this timeline can be accelerated just through agency is there. Now, agency typically is driven more by external imperatives. Necessity being the mother of invention, rather than just by us coming together to say we’re going to do it,” Sullivan told reporters.

“But my pitch to the incoming team is, with all the lessons we’ve now learned and the picture we now see so clearly, let’s take some steps, and let’s do it on a bipartisan basis,” he said.

The post What Jake Sullivan wants the Trump administration to know about the defense industrial base appeared first on DefenseScoop.

In responses to questions from DefenseScoop this week, Pahon discussed Hicks’ plans and priorities for her final days helping steer the Defense Department’s major technology programs.

“Deputy Secretary Hicks’ priorities today remain the same as they have been since her first day in office: Foremost, in support of the secretary and president, she is maintaining her focus on ensuring that DOD can outpace strategic competitors like the [People’s Republic of China] by fielding more combat-credible capabilities at greater speed and scale, continually iterating on novel operational concepts, distributing and hardening our force posture, and leveraging our unparalleled ability to generate innovation with and through America’s private sector,” he said. 

“She is also maintaining a laser focus on financial accountability, strengthening the department’s institutional pillars, including by ensuring a smooth and professional transition, and taking care of the DOD workforce,” Pahon added. 

On Friday, Hicks is scheduled to speak at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies regarding lessons her team learned in their efforts associated with “strategic competition” and China, the spokesperson noted. 

Hicks was sworn in as the 35th deputy secretary of defense in February 2021. She is the first Senate-confirmed woman to serve in the role and is the highest-ranking woman to have served in DOD to date.

As the Pentagon’s No. 2, Hicks launched the high-stakes Replicator initiative to accelerate the delivery of next-generation warfighting technologies in repeatable processes — beginning with thousands of drones to be fielded by August 2025 to counter China’s growing military prowess. She also set up the recently-sunset Task Force Lima to explore generative AI in a responsible manner and account for the seen and unknown risks it presents within the U.S. national security arena.

Among other high-profile moves, Hicks also created the DOD’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) in mid–2022 to investigate military-aligned reports of unidentified anomalous phenomena (UAP).

Pahon confirmed that “Hicks made initial contact with the president-elect’s DOD transition team lead on Dec. 13,” noting that she’ll “remain at OSD through the end of the Biden-Harris Administration at noon on Jan. 20.”

Last month, Trump nominated billionaire investor Stephen Feinberg to serve as deputy defense secretary in his new administration. If they are both confirmed, Feinberg would report to the president-elect’s pick for defense secretary, television presenter Pete Hegseth. 

“The deputy secretary conveyed the department’s commitment to conducting a smooth and professional transition with the incoming Trump administration,” Pahon said of Hicks.

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DIU Director Doug Beck unveiled his updated strategic vision in early 2024 as a way to address a number of challenges that have kept the organization from accelerating the Defense Department’s adoption of dual-use, commercial technologies. A significant part of the new vision focused on both growing DIU and improving its ability to work with the commercial sector, Liz Young McNally, the organization’s deputy director for commercial operations, told DefenseScoop.

Hired in April 2024 to spearhead the unit’s collaboration with the commercial sector and investment community, McNally has spent the last several months integrating different components within DIU into a more unified commercial ops center while also helping the organization build out its regional infrastructure.

“DIU has folks all across the country helping to galvanize the defense innovation ecosystem,” she said in a recent interview. “We have onramp hubs, we have individuals — both government and contractor — bringing in talent, new companies [and] new technology into the department.”

Although the organization is still working to synchronize all relevant components into a single commercial operations center, McNally said DIU is already seeing improvements to how it brings new companies into the Pentagon ecosystem.

“I think now we’re in an even better position to focus on what the big rocks are, which are really around how do we lower the barriers for entry and … what are all the things that we can do to help make it easier to work with the department,” she told DefenseScoop.

For decades, Pentagon bureaucracy has been an obstacle for non-traditional contractors wanting to do business with the department — a phenomenon DIU and others are trying to remediate as commercial technology advances at a rapid pace.

McNally noted that while funding uncertainties have historically served as a barrier to entry, new entrants are also worried about other bureaucratic hurdles such as cyber resiliency, security clearances and the cumbersome authorization-to-operate (ATO) process. Addressing those specific challenges will be a focal point for the unit in 2025, she added.

“There’s so much chicken and egg for a lot of those in terms of when did the company work on them,” McNally said. “We’re in the process of, in the new year, launching some various efforts to pilot, in terms of what we can do even more to help our DIU portfolio companies in those different areas, using some of the [Defense Innovation Community of Entities] funding in the budget to do so.”

As it launches those pilots, McNally said her organization is taking lessons learned from working with some of the smaller companies on the Replicator initiative — an initiative that seeks to field thousands of advanced autonomous systems by August 2025. A future effort will allow the organization to aid those non-traditional defense companies in assessing their cyber resilience, she said.

“I think DIU just has more of a commercial lens to it than other parts of the department,” McNally told DefenseScoop “So when we do those assessments and help companies to think about what types of remediation they are going to do, quite frankly it feels different than when other parts of the department do it.”

The cultural difference between the commercial sector and the sprawling DOD is another barrier McNally pointed to as an area DIU will be tackling this year. For new entrants, the Pentagon is a large and opaque organization to try and navigate, and her organization wants to increase transparency to help companies know where to focus their investments and technology development, she noted.

It’s a task that requires change from both the top- and bottom-levels of the entire ecosystem, McNally said.

“By actually working together, you’re starting to evolve things as well so that there’s the top-down change,” she said. “But then ultimately, it’s starting work with those different program offices and starting to do the work that we’re doing at [Immersive Commercial Acquisition Program] offices and with the [Defense Acquisition University] and others to evolve that.”

Moving forward, a big focus will be on aligning the Pentagon’s most critical capability gaps with where the venture capitalist community is making investments. While some technologies — like AI and autonomy — are readily being funded, others that are more hardware-intensive currently don’t have as much private capital flowing in, she explained.

“Maybe there will be a window going forward to continue to think about what are the right incentives and other changes we have to make to ensure that we have enough private capital, [and] thinking about those other areas as well,” McNally said.

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The Defense Department unveiled its Replicator 2 effort in September, with a goal of accelerating high-volume production of technologies designed to detect, track and destroy unmanned aerial threats.

Shortly after signing off on a classified counter-uncrewed systems strategy last week, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin jetted off to DIU’s Silicon Valley headquarters to meet with companies developing these types of solutions.

The organization is playing a key role in bringing vendors and enabling technologies into the fold for Replicator.

The unit needs to “start early on the hardest problems, which in many cases are the software problems. And so for Replicator 1 [uncrewed platforms], we’re doing a whole host of things related to collaborative autonomy and command and control … For Replicator 2, we have a similar challenge with command and control across these systems, so we’re starting that now,” Aditi Kumar, deputy director of DIU, said Thursday during an event at the Hudson Institute.

While Replicator 1 is focused on accelerating and fielding thousands of uncrewed systems to counter China’s military buildup in the Indo-Pacific, Replicator 2 is also searching for tools to protect sites in the continental United States.

Lawmakers and other observers outside DOD are also concerned about these types of threats. For example, the compromise version of the fiscal 2025 National Defense Authorization Act, which was released over the weekend, would require the secretary of defense to create a “C-UAS Task Force” and for the director of the Pentagon’s All-Domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO) — which investigates reports of “unidentified anomalous phenomena” (UAP) — to designate liaisons to parter with that organization.

In recent days, sightings of mysterious drones in New Jersey have made headlines and raised alarm. And just last month, U.S. and U.K. military personnel were actively monitoring installations around and airspace over Royal Air Force Lakenheath, RAF Mildenhall, RAF Feltwell and RAF Fairford for mysterious small drones that have been repeatedly spotted near those bases.

Operating counter-UAS platforms in the homeland presents some different challenges than deploying these types of capabilities in war zones overseas, Kumar noted Thursday.

For example, one of the risks of firing off anti-drone weapons — be they kinetic interceptors like missiles or electronic warfare tools — in the United States is the possibility that such weapons could harm friendly aircraft and other civilian infrastructure, unintentionally.

“Even though we are designing some conceptual operations that are focused on the Indo-Pacom theater, I think similarly for Replicator 2 we had a chance to talk to some of our commercial partners about this, where there is the homeland defense challenge and then there is the OCONUS challenge. But even overseas, there are restricted environments, dense environments, populated environments that look very similar. We would think about them very similarly to environments in the homeland. And then, of course, there are, you know, conflict zones, and those are different types of solutions that we need to field. And so as we think about them, I think, you know, the homeland defense challenge is going to be probably the biggest one that we need to tackle, and as we think about the types of solutions that we can apply there, we can think about how broadly applicable they are to those other environments so that we can field something more broadly,” Kumar said.

“Even in the way that we selected Replicator 2 locations, Replicator 2 is focused on, you know, protecting our installations and force concentrations. The way that we selected those sites where we would field this capability was very deliberate because we wanted a sample set that is representative of the global footprint. And so as we field to those sites, we will then be able to draw lessons on how we can proliferate those technologies across the globe,” she added. “I think we start with the most limited environments, and then we go out from there.”

She noted that her organization recently released a solicitation via its commercial solutions opening for a “Forward Counter Unmanned Aircraft Systems Command and Control System,” or FCUAS C2.

The document states that critical infrastructure and force concentrations are increasingly at risk from the growing threat of adversary drones.

“Current command and control (C2) systems are not optimized to address the speed at which kill chain decisions (detect, track, identify/ assess, defeat) must occur to counter unmanned systems. As the UAS threat increases, a single operator conducting air defense operations may be overwhelmed,” officials wrote.

To address this problem, the Pentagon “seeks a tactical edge based C2 system that enables a single operator to manage multiple targets and is capable of fire control providing the ability to rapidly adapt to counter swarms of unmanned systems along with other potential manned or unmanned system threats. The solution should reduce operator cognitive load and accelerate the decision process to conduct multiple simultaneous kinetic and/or non-kinetic engagements, be easy to operate and can quickly integrate additional data sources, capabilities, sensors, and effectors and be able to operate autonomously if needed,” per the solicitation.

Some of the “primary attributes” that DIU is looking for when it comes to industry solutions include the ability to operate solely on a laptop, tablet or other portable system as a single piece of hardware; utilize or ingest sensor data for detection, tracking and identification; and “be capable of automated creation of engagement plans and providing fire control for various systems to include effectors such as kinetic, directed energy (DE), and electronic warfare, and attack UAS (interceptors).”

The unit also wants tools that support automated identification and classification of targets, weapons pairing, “prosecution of target,” and assistance with linking “the best sensor with the best effector option” for defeating threats.

Such a capability would fit in with the department’s concept for Combined Joint-All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2), which aims to better connect the sensors, platforms, data streams and commanders of the U.S. military services and key allies and partners.

Vendor software needs to be able to support a minimum of 2,000 tracks at 4Hz; help with fratricide avoidance and airspace deconfliction; mitigate interference of electronic warfare systems; and support track cueing and track forwarding, according to the solicitation.

“This prototype will require several field exercises and will include integrating with existing sensor and effector systems and executing a full kill chain in a live fire CUAS test event projected for the summer of 2025,” officials wrote.

They noted that prototype other transaction agreements that are awarded may lead to awards of follow-on production contracts or transactions without the use of further competitive procedures.

“The follow-on production contract or transaction will be available for use by one or more organizations in the Department of Defense and, as a result, the magnitude of the follow-on production contract or agreement could be significantly larger than that of the prototype OT,” according to the solicitation.

Industry responses are due Dec. 23.

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Viasat, Aalyria, Higher Ground and IoT/AI were selected among the 119 companies that submitted proposals for DIU’s Opportunistic, Resilient & Innovative Expeditionary Network Topology (ORIENT) commercial solutions opening. The firms are expected to provide technologies for “improving the resilience” of command-and-control capabilities for so-called “all-domain attritable autonomous” (ADA2) systems. A total of 130 solutions were proposed by interested vendors before the selections were made, according to a release.

Additionally, Swarm Aero, Anduril Industries and L3Harris Technologies were tapped to provide tools to facilitate “the automated coordination of swarms of hundreds or thousands of uncrewed assets across multiple domains in order to improve their lethality and efficiency.” Proposals were requested via the Autonomous Collaborative Teaming (ACT) commercial solutions opening. The winners were chosen among 132 companies that submitted a total of 165 proposed solutions, according to DIU.

DIU didn’t disclose the value of the contracts, though DefenseScoop reached out to obtain those numbers.

Last week, Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks announced that the Pentagon had tapped vendors to serve as “integrated software enablers” to help fully realize the department’s ambitious Replicator plans, but she didn’t identify the companies.

For Replicator tranches 1.1 and 1.2, the department selected a variety of unmanned systems — including uncrewed aerial vehicles, loitering munitions and maritime drones — for accelerated production to support Replicator, which is intended to help the department counter China’s military buildup in the Indo-Pacific by fielding thousands of robotic platforms.

Replicator 2.0, unveiled in September, is primarily focused on counter-drone systems.

However, drones and counter-UAS capabilities are only part of the broader Replicator effort. Software is seen as a key enabler of autonomy and networking chosen systems with other platforms.

“While these systems are valuable as single agents or swarms of like systems, they are most resilient and effective when they operate in combined teams that can collaborate with other types of systems across domains. Resilient C2 and collaborative autonomy vendors will enhance the effectiveness of these systems by providing user interfaces, collaborative autonomy architectures and software, and network orchestration. The enabling software technology will also allow Replicator systems to seamlessly connect robust long-haul communications solutions to redundant local mesh networks and ensure they can continue to operate as a system-of-systems in disconnected, disrupted, low-bandwidth, and intermittent environments. Together, these critical software enablers will enable so-called ‘heterogeneous collaboration’ between different Replicator systems fielded in the next year and lay the foundation for the Department’s broader push towards collaborative autonomy,” DIU officials wrote in the release.

The innovation unit, which was established less than 10 years ago by then-Secretary of Defense Ash Carter to serve as a bridge between the Pentagon and the commercial sector, is headquartered in Silicon Valley and has outposts in major tech hubs like Austin, Boston and other locations, as well as an office in the Pentagon. The organization is playing a key role in spearheading Replicator efforts by bringing additional companies into the fold and trying to get them on contract quickly.

“We believe that best in breed commercial software solutions can significantly enhance DoD modernization efforts,” DIU Director Doug Beck said in a statement Wednesday. “Many leading AI and autonomy firms are outside of our traditional defense industrial base, and DIU is working actively with partners across the Department to bring the very best capabilities from the U.S. tech sector to bear in support of our most critical warfighter needs. This latest step in the Replicator initiative is a critical example of that teamwork in action.”

At a Brookings Institution event Tuesday, Adm. Samuel Paparo, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, said unmanned systems like those being accelerated for Replicator offer significant benefits. They fit in with a “Hellscape” warfighting concept that he’s laid out for a potential conflict with China in the Taiwan Strait.

However, operational challenges in the region also highlight the need for other types of capabilities, he noted.

“Certainly, these systems are ideal in enclosed spaces … if you can deploy it. Then when you’re finished with doing this, you’re going to have to sustain those forces in Okinawa over wide-ranging space. To do so, you’re going to need air and maritime superiority. How am I going to do that?” Paparo said.

“For closed spaces for executing sea denial, this can be a very key capability. But air and maritime superiority are going to be important over wide expanses, and that means energy and energy density. And here the coin of the realm is dazzle, deceive [and] destroy an enemy’s capability to see and sense the battlespace; maneuver in periods where an enemy can’t see; bring long-range fires on an enemy; gain that capability to maneuver; and sustain across seven joint functions — and one of those joint functions is sustainment,” he added.

The U.S. military can’t achieve that type of superiority just because “we got some drones,” the admiral said.

DefenseScoop asked Paparo if Indo-Pacom was planning to deploy large numbers of Replicator systems on U.S. ships and aircraft to avoid some of the complications associated with stationing them on the territory of allies in the region.

“Probably, yeah,” he replied.

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Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks shed new light on this work in a press release Wednesday. 

In it, she also spotlighted the various products tapped for rapid delivery in the second tranche of the unfolding Replicator initiative, which Hicks conceptualized to help counter China’s massive, ongoing military buildup by incentivizing speedy domestic manufacturing of in-demand military assets through replicable processes.

She noted Wednesday that, through Replicator and other autonomy-pushing efforts, the Pentagon is starting to harness these enablers or “resilient decision-making architectures for collaborative autonomy teaming” that can essentially synchronize up to thousands of uncrewed capabilities in a secure and shared environment. 

“These ‘integrated enablers’ are enhancing the ability of Replicator systems to operate and collaborate autonomously, and to remain resilient in the face of jamming and other countermeasures. The Department is acquiring many of these integrated software enablers using Commercial Solutions Openings led by the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) that streamline and accelerate onramps for commercial industry,” Hicks wrote.

“Announcement of these awards is forthcoming,” the deputy confirmed.

In the release, Hicks also for the first time officially confirmed all of the unclassified systems tapped in the second Replicator tranche, deemed 1.2. 

As DefenseScoop previously reported, this tranche includes Anduril Industries’ quiet and modular Ghost-X aerial drones via the Army’s Company-Level Small Uncrewed Aerial Systems effort — and multiple vendors, including Anduril, that have and will be selected in partnership with the Air Force’s Enterprise Test Vehicle.

“In many ways, Anduril was founded specifically to achieve the stated goals of the Replicator initiative: to accelerate the development, production, acquisition, and employment of large numbers of affordable, attritable autonomous systems. Across our business, we are delivering transformative, software-defined solutions at speed to ensure that warfighters have the capabilities they need, when they need them,” an Anduril spokesperson told DefenseScoop on Wednesday.

Hicks said in her announcement that the Pentagon is also “scaling loitering munitions through fielding and expanded experimentation” of Anduril’s Altius-600, and separately the Performance Drone Works C-100 UAS. 

“Replicator 1.2 also includes additional systems that remain classified, including low-cost long-range strike capabilities and maritime uncrewed systems,” Hicks wrote.

DefenseScoop reported in August that Anduril’s Dive-LD autonomous underwater vehicles were selected to be quickly mass-produced in the second Replicator tranche.

Since Replicator’s launch in August 2023, DOD leaders and officials involved have been expressly tight-lipped — frequently citing security concerns — about the ambitious plan and how it’s panning out. The Pentagon’s Office of Inspector General recently revealed it is conducting a comprehensive assessment of Replicator.

In her latest announcement, Hicks again committed to fielding these drone swarms and associated systems by August 2025 — as originally envisioned.

More than 500 commercial firms were considered for Replicator hardware and software contracting and major subcontracting opportunities across the first and second tranches, she noted, and awards have so far been made to more than 30 hardware and software companies and more than 50 subcontractors.

“The Replicator initiative is demonstrably reducing barriers to innovation, and delivering capabilities to warfighters at a rapid pace,” Hicks wrote.

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A key goal of Replicator is to help grease the wheels of the acquisition system so that the department can field thousands of “attritable autonomous” platforms to counter China’s military buildup in the Indo-Pacific. As DefenseScoop has previously reported, the initial tranches include loitering munitions and other types of drones, uncrewed surface vessels and unmanned underwater vehicles. Last month, the department unveiled Replicator 2.0, which is largely focused on accelerating the fielding of counter-drone capabilities.

“To complement the Replicator Initiative, the Department intends to commission various projects, studies, and white paper reviews to identify vendors who can accelerate solid rocket motor production,” the implementation plan for the Pentagon’s first-ever National Defense Industrial Strategy stated.

Solid rocket motors (SRM) — which are critical for munitions, boosters for satellite launchers and other items — fall under the category of “kinetic capabilities” that the DOD is focusing on.

The implementation plan noted that the department will evaluate proposals from the Defense Industrial Base Consortium (DIBC), which uses other transaction authority.

“There is already ongoing work within the department on addressing what have been previously identified five key areas of industrial capability where we need to put forward significant effort. And kinetic capabilities … have been one of those focus areas. So with regard to solid rocket motors, there is going to be a complementary effort, but separate from, if you will, to the Replicator effort, which … is a specific endeavor that is going to produce, you know, affordable and in these initial instances, attritable systems, right, for [us] to execute our strategy, specifically in the Indo-Pacific. But there are going to be a need for complementary technologies that are going to enable some of these efforts. So that is the point of talking about SRM and associated kinetic capabilities,” Carla Zeppieri, deputy assistant secretary of defense for industrial base resilience, told DefenseScoop during a briefing with reporters Tuesday to roll out the new implementation plan.

The document noted that Defense Production Act Title III initiatives — which aim to expand manufacturing capacity and supplies of critical technologies — in support of the DIBC and Joint Energetics Transition Office are eyeing multiple awards of $5 million to $75 million over the next five years.

“If DPA Title III does not receive the funding required to support DIBC and the JETO, their efforts to strengthen the SRM industrial base could face significant challenges and potentially not be executed,” officials warned in the implementation plan.

Zeppieri said the plan — which will also include a classified annex that is slated to be delivered before the end of the year — lays out where officials expect resources to come from to support the various initiatives highlighted in the broader strategy.

“In some cases, they’re coming from within, you know, already funded programs. And some cases looking forward, you know, they will need to be topics … of future budget requests. But with regard to DPA, there is, you know, an active appropriations bill right now … in the Congress that we are working with the appropriators for a successful final outcome that is going to fund all of those priority projects that are in the pipeline to be addressed,” she told DefenseScoop.

Officials have also been putting together the fiscal 2026 budget request and five-year spending projections for the future years defense program, which are expected to be released next year.

During the briefing, officials were asked whether a lack of funding for Defense Production Act or DIBC other transaction efforts for solid rocket motors in the near term would slow down the Replicator initiative.

“I don’t believe that would happen,” Laura Taylor-Kale, assistant secretary of defense for industrial base policy, told reporters.

In a problem statement accompanying a request for white papers issued by the DIBC a few months ago, officials noted some of the shortfalls that the Pentagon is facing.

“The SRM manufacturing capacity is constrained and fragile due to current geopolitical events. The United States Defense Industrial Base (DIB) currently does not have enough manufacturing capacity of SRMs to support ongoing engagements in the Middle East, Ukraine, and preparations in the Pacific, nor enough to quickly replenish domestic stockpiles,” the document stated.

To get after that problem, the Manufacturing Capability Expansion and Investment Prioritization (MCEIP) office is seeking additional SRM and SRM component and sub-component suppliers to create a more resilient industrial base, increase domestic capacity, encourage industry competition and reduce unit costs.

Proposers were told that they must demonstrate the technical and manufacturing feasibility of establishing one or more domestic, commercially viable prototype production lines capable of producing solid rocket motors, components or sub-components.

The document said multiple awards are anticipated with individual project agreement funding estimated between $5 million and $75 million over the next five years, subject to future availability of government funding.

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