Signed under Pillar 2 of the AUKUS trilateral security pact, the so-called Hypersonic Flight Test and Experimentation (HyFliTE) project arrangement includes plans to conduct at least six flight test campaigns by 2028, according to a news release from the Pentagon. A funding pool worth $252 million will be used to finance the efforts, the release noted.

“We are increasing our collective ability to develop and deliver offensive and defensive hypersonic technologies through a robust series of trilateral tests and experiments that will accelerate the development of hypersonic concepts and critical enabling technologies,” U.S. Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering Heidi Shyu said in a statement.

As one of Shyu’s 14 critical technology areas, hypersonic weapons are a key development effort at the Defense Department. The missiles are able to fly and maneuver through the atmosphere at speeds of at least Mach 5 — or five times the speed of sound — making them difficult to intercept and defeat.

The U.S. Air Force, Army and Navy have each invested significant time and money into developing their own hypersonic missiles, but individual efforts have faced hurdles during their testing campaigns that have stalled final acquisition and fielding decisions. Those challenges, in part, have been attributed to a limited number of testing facilities and ranges within the United States.

Through HyFliTE, the three AUKUS nations are looking to ramp up the pace of hypersonic weapons testing through collaboration on resources, experience and test facilities. 

“Collaborative efforts are accelerating the development of underpinning enabling technologies, such as high temperature materials, advanced propulsion systems, and guidance and control,” Shyu said. “Each of these technologies is integral to the performance of hypersonic weapon systems and provides enhanced operational capability.”

Australia has previously partnered with the United States on hypersonics through the Southern Cross Integrated Flight Research Experiment (SCIFiRE) effort. The nation is also home to the Woomera Range Complex, a large and highly specialized testing center that could be leveraged for live flight testing of these types of systems.

“This agreement will accelerate Australia’s sovereign ability to develop and deliver offensive and defensive hypersonic technologies — through a robust testing and experimentation campaign under AUKUS Pillar II,” Tanya Monro, Australia’s chief defense scientist, said in a statement.

According to a news release from the United Kingdom, the HyFliTE project is also expected to foster deep collaboration between the three allies’ industrial bases in order to break down acquisition barriers and strengthen supply chains.

The U.K. has also sourced domestic industry support for hypersonic weapons development through its Hypersonic Technologies and Capability Development Framework, including more than 90 suppliers and a commercial headroom of up to 1 billion British pounds, the news release added.

“This landmark arrangement with our US and Australian partners demonstrates the commitment of AUKUS partners to staying at the forefront of battle-winning defence technology,” United Kingdom Secretary of State for Defence John Healey said in a statement. “This work will keep us ahead of our adversaries on the battlefield, enhance our collective security and contribute to maintaining peace and stability in an increasingly complex and dangerous world.”

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America’s Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Richard Marles, and Japanese Minister of Defense Nakatani Gen detailed their latest cooperation agenda in a press briefing immediately following the fourteenth Trilateral Defense Ministers’ Meeting (TDMM) Nov. 17, where they’d solidified these aims.

“We’re excited to build advanced capabilities with Japan and Australia,” Austin told reporters there.

“We’re moving forward with our trilateral research, development, test and evaluation projects arrangement focusing on composite aerospace materials and autonomous systems. In the same vein, we’re deepening our discussions on cooperative combat aircraft and autonomy, and we’re also discussing opportunities to boost cooperation with Japan on AUKUS Pillar 2,” he said.

Broadly, the senior officials vowed to enhance their nations’ defense cooperation pursuits across four focus areas: expanding trilateral operational cooperation; building advanced capabilities together; planning together; and demonstrating presence in the region.

Among a range of fresh announcements, they confirmed new goals to cooperate on establishing a networked air-and-missile defense architecture designed to counter threats intensifying across the Indo-Pacific, and agreed to deepen collaboration with regard to trilateral training, exercises and exchanges.

They also launched a new plan for “Trilateral Defense Consultations” to more concretely align policy and operational objectives between America’s military services, the Japan Self Defense Forces, and the Australian Defence Force.

“There actually has been a real history and record of us working closely together. But what we are announcing today gives expression to the fact that — as three countries — we now seek to do this in a more and increasingly coordinated way. And that will be a benefit to our capability. We believe it will be the benefit to the collective security of the Indo-Pacific, and we believe it will make a significant contribution to the global rules-based order,” Marles said.

The trilateral partners also expressed concerns about intensifying, destabilizing actions being carried out by adversaries in the region — including what they called “dangerous conduct” and coercion that they attribute to China.

“The security environment is very severe right now, and very complex. We need to cooperate closely, from peacetime to contingency,” Nakatani said.

In terms of new plans for joint technology acceleration in the near term, Austin noted that through the AUKUS alliance, the U.S., U.K. and Australia are working together on Pillar 2 tech to “provide real capability to the warfighter as quickly as we possibly can.”

“We expect that Japan will join AUKUS Pillar 2 at some point in the not-too-distant future to work on specific projects that have yet to be named,” the defense secretary said.

“But again, there are just so many things that we can work together on and are working together on — whether it’s you know quantum capability, whether it’s [collaborative combat aircraft or CCA], or what you would describe as man-unmanned teaming aircraft, and just a number of other things that include long-range strike, and so many other things that I believe our work is going to kind of pay significant dividends to the warfighter here going forward,” Austin told DefenseScoop.

Ahead of the trilateral meeting, the defense leaders participated in a troop engagement with Australian soldiers and U.S. Marines rotationally based in Darwin — and were shown tanks, drones and other assets they are developing and deploying.

At one point, Australian Army Sgt. Jake Fauser briefed the officials on some uncrewed aerial systems and radar capabilities being leveraged for detection and reconnaissance operations. He notably answered follow-up questions from Austin regarding the range and reach of the various assets.

On the sidelines of the event, Fauser told DefenseScoop about some of the drones on display.

“For our close-range reconnaissance we have the Black Hornet, which can move between that sort of zero-to-two-kilometer radius. In our intermediate we have our Parrot drone, which [operators can move up to four kilometers] — and then we have our Wasp capability that can punch from out to five [kilometers]. And we’re in the process of getting the Puma being a new long-range drone which can increase our capability out to 40 kilometers,” Fauser said.

In his view as a soldier, deepening partnerships in this way is boosting Australia’s national stability and security.

“It has been an excellent experience. Last year, my platoon was attached to an American combat team. Being able to experience the different ways that the Australian Army does things with the U.S. Marine Corps and learning off each other, being able to learn off each other, and then we’d be able to cover each other’s gaps in a future conflict, if the need is there,” Fauser told DefenseScoop.

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“During this trip, we will deliver results to advance cooperation, strengthen our relationships, and build an enduring network of allies and partners. I am proud of the historic progress we’ve made over the last four years and the depth of continuing U.S. commitment to the region,” Austin said in a statement ahead of takeoff.

Earlier this week, senior defense officials previewed plans for the trip on the condition of anonymity during a briefing at the Pentagon with a small group of reporters invited to accompany Austin on his journey. They spotlighted aims to promote deeper research and technology-driving partnerships and further the U.S. military’s interoperability with partners in the region.

First, the secretary and his entourage will land in Darwin, Australia. There, he’ll participate in a trilateral defense ministerial meeting with his Australian and Japanese counterparts. 

Senior U.S. defense officials said those involved plan to make “significant strides” to evolve their joint air and missile defense and information-sharing capabilities.

“On the interoperability front, you will see the three ministers … announcing that Japan is committing to integrate its forces into Marine Rotational Force Darwin rotations to train alongside the United States and Australia in Darwin starting next year in 2025. So that’s going to be a very critical … deliverable rounding out those trilateral discussions,” one of the background briefers said. 

After that first stop, Austin and his crew will continue on to the Philippines, where they’ll spend a full first day in Manila and then a half day on the island of Palawan.

He’ll visit Camp Aguinaldo, the Philippines’ military base where their Department of National Defense is housed, to participate in a groundbreaking ceremony for a new bilateral Combined Coordination Center, or CCC, where forces from both nations’ militaries will sit side-by-side to conduct operational planning.

Next up, in Palawan, Austin will visit Philippines Western Command headquarters, which is a key node for ongoing naval operations in the South China Sea.

“Then Secretary Austin will head to the C2 fusion center, a site built by [U.S. Indo-Pacific Command] for military information sharing — for a Philippine Navy tech demonstration of a T-12 unmanned surface vessel,” a senior defense official told reporters in the briefing.

In response to questions from DefenseScoop, the official said there will not be any announcements associated with the U.S. pre-positioning uncrewed assets in these Pacific nations to deter China, but the demo will involve military personnel from the Philippines operating some of the drone systems that the Pentagon has provided to them.

“Those types of systems will be a strong theme throughout the effort, for sure,” they told DefenseScoop.

From there, Austin and the team will go to Laos for the ASEAN defense ministers meeting. 

On the sidelines, the Pentagon leader is expected to unveil multiple new partnership initiatives and announce what officials called the “first-ever U.S. DOD vision statement for a prosperous and secure Southeast Asia.”

Austin’s last stop on this journey will be in Fiji — notably marking the first time an American leader serving in that capacity visits the nation. 

“Significantly, this is the big announcement. He will announce that our countries will begin negotiations on a U.S.-Fiji SOFA, the Status of Forces Agreement … You know this is important, because it really spells out how the United States, our forces, can operate in the country, and it will empower us to do more together with them,” a senior defense official told reporters. 

Austin is also set to sign a new “acquisition and cross-servicing agreement,” which the official said will enable America to send logistical support to the island nation “very quickly in any kind of emergency.”

“I am proud of the historic progress we’ve made over the last four years and the depth of continuing U.S. commitment to the region,” Austin said in the statement.

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The Pentagon’s No. 2 official shared that update among a list of achievements the Chief Digital and AI Office has helped accomplish over the last several years since its inception, during pre-recorded remarks that were aired to kick off the CDAO’s Responsible AI in Defense Forum in Reston, Virginia, on Tuesday.

“Since 2021, we’ve accelerated our drive toward a more modernized, data-driven, and AI-empowered U.S. military,” Hicks said. 

Broadly, the CDAO is hosting this invite-only workshop as a venue to enable dozens of Pentagon-supporting stakeholders to exchange ideas and plans for operationalizing RAI in defense. A range of practitioners, experts and scholars from government, industry, academia and other international participants — notably, from nations in the NATO alliance and Indo-Pacific region — are in attendance.

Some of the forum’s sessions focus on risks and opportunities presented by emerging and powerful generative AI and associated frontier models, the Defense Department’s approach to responsibly deploying autonomy and an RAI Toolkit demo. 

During her opening keynote, Hicks emphasized that the DOD does not use data and AI to censor, repress or disempower people.

Spotlighting some of its “wins” so far, she noted that the CDAO has “updated DOD responsible-use policies and directives, to keep pace with new tech and lead on trust and safety,” and also “issued new strategies, guidelines, guardrails, and practical toolkits and apps that turn our values into action.”

“We’re glad those resources are now used by many outside DOD — like other U.S. agencies, international allies and partners, and leading tech companies. We’re also glad that almost 60 nations now endorse, as we do, the Political Declaration on Responsible Military Use of AI and Autonomy,” Hicks said.

That framework, which ultimately seeks to build and foster an international consensus around responsible behavior and guide nations’ development and deployments of AI and autonomous capabilities for warfare, was launched in February 2023 at the Responsible AI in the Military Domain Summit in the Hague, Netherlands.

According to data from the WayBackMachine website, some of the latest nations to endorse the pledge since it was first adopted include Ukraine, Panama, Ethiopia, Israel and New Zealand. 

On the sidelines of the RAI Forum on Tuesday, the Australian Defence Department’s chief data integration officer, Paul Robards, told DefenseScoop that “signing up to that international, responsible AI and military blueprint is part of Australia’s commitment to building trust with our partners and allies.”

In his view, the partnership between the U.S. and Australian governments and militaries to collaboratively and responsibly enable joint and interoperable artificial intelligence capabilities continues to deepen — as further demonstrated by his attendance and speaking engagement on stage at the forum.

“This is across multiple fronts — and the AUKUS alliance is absolutely a part of that. But beyond that, we’re working together in so many ways and there’s a lot of opportunities ahead of us here with responsible AI,” Robards said.

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That large-scale modernization affair — Autonomous Warrior 2024 — marks AUKUS’ signature event this year and is part of the alliance’s new Maritime Big Play series of integrated trilateral experiments and exercises, two senior defense officials told a small group of reporters on a call Wednesday.

“Maritime Big Play allows AUKUS partners to practice fielding and maintaining thousands of uncrewed systems, gaining valuable experience operating in coalitions to solve realistic operational problems, such as improving undersea situational awareness,” said Madeline Mortelmans, acting assistant secretary of defense for strategy, plans and capabilities. 

The AUKUS alliance is structured around two pillars. 

While the first of those encompasses the co-development of a nuclear-powered submarine force for Australia, Pillar 2 focuses on the co-creation and deployments of emerging and disruptive military technologies.

Via Pillar 2, Mortelmans noted, AUKUS members are “implementing a fundamental shift to more closely integrate our systems and break down barriers to collaboration at every stage and in every part of our system.”

Broadly, the MBP series is designed to push forward the Pillar 2 objective to rapidly translate cutting-edge capabilities into practical, asymmetric assets delivered quickly to service members in the field. 

Through it, the international partners aim to collaboratively test and refine the alliance’s capacity to jointly operate uncrewed systems at sea, transmit and process intelligence and reconnaissance data from all three nations, and supply real-time maritime domain awareness to strengthen decision-making. 

“What we’ve been doing with this experimentation campaign is to ensure that when different gear shows up in the fight and into theater, it can be included seamlessly to provide common operating pictures and common control systems, and to ensure effects as and when we choose to have them as a coalition,” a senior defense official who joined Mortelmans but spoke on the condition of anonymity, told reporters on Wednesday. 

DefenseScoop asked the two officials whether any of the autonomous or other combat capabilities were identified by AUKUS participants as a tool that would make sense for more rapid fielding and use in military operations in the near term.

“Some of them already are,” the senior defense official said. “There are some systems — uncrewed surface vessels in Australia  — that have been put out on the ocean. And some of the things that we saw during this experimentation campaign was data coming back from those systems in real-time to maintain a common operating picture.”

They further told DefenseScoop: “Part of doing the Maritime Big Play is to see the realm of what’s available and to make those kinds of decisions. But at this point, we haven’t even completed the exercise, so no decisions have been taken to acquire or rapidly accelerate any system.” 

On the call, the two senior defense officials opted not to explicitly name any of the technology brands or companies that made the sensors, platforms, drones, or network and communications systems the U.S. brought to Autonomous Warrior 2024.

However, in an email from Australia shortly afterwards, Pentagon spokesperson Army Maj. Pete Nguyen shed more light on the exact prototypes and technologies America demonstrated during the event.

The list he provided includes, among others:

• High Altitude Balloons (HABs) that “augment the space domain by providing resilient communications in a denied environment from the stratosphere by carrying a range of mission capable payloads” — from Aerostar, based in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.
• Greenough Advanced Rescue Craft (GARC), which are “low-cost attritable [small uncrewed  surface vehicles or sUSVs] that can deploy independently or as a formation … and provide an uncrewed means to respond to Anti-Access/Area Denial (A2AD)” — from MAPC, in Baltimore, Maryland.
• Sea Stalker sUSV that’s “designed to serve in multiple maritime missions to include reconnaissance, surveillance, intelligence collection” — from Swift Ships, a small business based in Morgan City, Louisiana.
• Triton “multi-model Autonomous Underwater and Surface Vessel capable of persistent operation in a contested environment with threat detection and evasion capabilities” — from Ocean Aero, a small business in Gulfport, Mississippi.
• A “Government-Owned, Non-Proprietary Common Control System” that gives “U.S. Navy uncrewed vehicles hardware and software that works across several different systems” and helps process data from sensor payloads.

“This is only the first in our series of experiments and demonstrations. Over time, Maritime Big Play will grow and evolve to reflect emerging technologies, new systems and new operational requirements,” Mortelmans told reporters Wednesday.

Notably, during that call she also mentioned that members of the Japanese military joined this round of Maritime Big Play experimentation as “observers.”

AUKUS leaders have made it clear that they are open to expanding the trilateral security partnership to include other nations — solely under Pillar 2, not Pillar 1 — to jointly strengthen the interoperability of their maritime drone systems. 

“Planning for the next exercise is underway. So the full details of what [Japan’s] participation will be in the future hasn’t yet been determined, but I think that they will move from being an observer to being a participant in the activity. And what a participant means could be bringing Japanese systems and platforms participating in that command-and-control architecture. There’s a wide range of opportunities and we’re really eager to explore those,” the senior defense official told DefenseScoop.

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These engagements will mark the 34th Australia-United States Ministerial Consultation, or AUSMIN, which is considered a key annual forum for deliberation between the long-standing allies.

During a call with reporters on Monday, two senior defense officials previewed the talks and spotlighted overarching aims to deepen the partnership between Washington and Canberra.

U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin was first scheduled to meet bilaterally with Australian Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Defence Richard Marles at the Pentagon. On Tuesday, they were slated to join their diplomatic counterparts, Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Australian Minister for Foreign Affairs Penny Wong, for the AUSMIN gathering in Annapolis, Maryland, a senior defense official said.

“These engagements will advance the historic progress of the alliance, including on force posture, defense industrial base integration, and collaboration on advanced capabilities,” the official added.

Broadly, the American and Australian militaries have fought together in all major conflicts since World War I — and the two nations’ bilateral defense ties are increasingly and exceptionally close. More recently, they’ve been working together to deter China’s growing influence in the western Pacific region and collaboratively tackle military-related supply chain challenges.

“On defense industrial cooperation, we’re making significant progress with Australia,” a senior defense official told reporters during the call. 

“By this December, we will work to conclude an agreement on precision guided missiles, or PrSM, that covers cooperative production, sustainment and follow-on development activities — and we will also establish a joint programs office to advance these activities in 2025 in Huntsville, Alabama,” they confirmed.  

Also on the docket for discussion is solidifying the United States’ plan to support Australia’s production of guided multiple launch rocket system missiles (GMLRS). 

“The two announcements that we will be making are that we will be pursuing memorandums of understanding for both GMLRS, and then separately for PrSM. Those MOUs will outline the mechanisms for co-production, including the intent to produce viable volumes of GMLRS for global consumption — and then for PrSM, outlining more of our way forward in terms of cooperative production, post-sustainment and follow-on development. So at this time, we don’t have further information to report, but once we have those MOUs negotiated — those will outline kind of our next steps,” a second senior defense official told reporters.

They further hinted at the military partners’ joint plans to integrate new capabilities and test new operational concepts during the next iteration of the Talisman Sabre exercise in 2025 — including amphibious training at Shoalwater Bay.

“We’re also working collaboratively on cutting-edge hypersonic technologies that will provide critical advantage to the warfighter. Australia and the United States are making significant progress in design and ground testing to develop an air-launched hypersonic weapon under the Southern Cross Integrated Flight Research Experiment, or SCIFiRE, which is supporting the bilateral flight test program of the hypersonic attack cruise missile,” the senior defense official said.

The two nations are also aiming to enhance their “force posture cooperation in unprecedented ways,” according to the official.

The militaries are continuing more regular rotations of warfighting platforms, they noted, as well as expanding their logistics cooperation, including by assessing places where the U.S. could locate an enduring logistics support area in Queensland, Australia.

“At AUSMIN, we’ll be announcing new and longer-term operating locations in Australia for force posture cooperation … building upon additional infrastructure upgrades that are already underway at Australia’s northern air bases,” the senior defense official said. 

This high-level meetup notably comes on the heels of a 10-day series of engagements that Austin conducted with multiple partners around Asia.

Extending some of those discussions, this week the U.S. and Australia plan to look into ways they can grow cooperative maritime activities together with the Philippines, another American ally which is involved in maritime disputes with China.

Additionally, “we’re fostering greater intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, or ISR, cooperation by establishing more trilateral exercises and activities between the United States, Australia and Japan in the Indo-Pacific region,” the senior defense official said.

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“We’re bringing together … some of our closest non-NATO partners to have a discussion around issues like resilience and cyber, disinformation, technology and the like,” a senior administration official said July 5. 

President Joe Biden, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and many of their domestic colleagues and foreign counterparts are set to take part in this historic, three-day summit, which kicks off Tuesday and will commemorate NATO’s 75th anniversary. 

Broadly, the military alliance hosts these periodic meet-ups as opportunities for heads of state and other government leaders of member countries to connect in one place on key policy priorities — and ultimately agree upon and lay out strategic plans to guide their latest activities. This week’s gathering will be the first NATO summit held in Washington since 1999. 

This one will unfold against the backdrop of the war in Ukraine sparked by Russia’s invasion.

Top aims “include ensuring the implementation of new NATO plans for credible deterrence and defense, enhancing long-term support for Ukraine and fostering its future NATO membership,” Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder told reporters last week.

“During the summit, Secretary Austin will be engaged in discussions to ramp up transatlantic defense industrial production, ensure adequate defense investments from allies and the deepening of practical cooperation between NATO and its Indo-Pacific partners to include Australia, Japan, New Zealand and the Republic of Korea,” he added.

Speaking on the condition of anonymity at another discussion last week, a senior White House official also pointed to that increased focus on the Indo-Pacific.

“This particular grouping of the ‘IP4,’ as we call them in NATO lingo — Australia, Japan, New Zealand, ROK — these are some of our closest partners that we work with in the region,” the official explained.

While NATO first signed formal agreements with the Indo-Pacific 4 in the early 2010s, this partnership was elevated through the inaugural participation of those countries’ leaders in the alliance’s 2022 summit, held in Madrid. The NATO and IP4 partners reaffirmed their ties at the conference in Vilnius, Lithuania, last year.

“I will say that we’ve got some new projects that we’re going to be talking about at the summit with our Indo-Pacific partners on resilience. So resilience in the region, supporting Ukraine, as I mentioned, countering disinformation, cyber — and then also on tech cooperation and emerging technologies,” the senior administration official said.

America’s docket for the meeting, according to that official, also involves plans to discuss China’s intensifying support for Russia’s defense industrial base.

“With something like 90 percent of Russia’s semiconductors coming from the [People’s Republic of China], 70 percent of its nitrocellulose, which is used for propellants — and a lot of its optics, machine tools, etc. — all of this not only fueling Russia’s war against Ukraine but also creating a long-term challenge for European security that, obviously, our allies recognize. And so we will have, I think, strong language on this to address,” the senior official said.

On the sidelines of the summit, they confirmed, Biden will host a meeting with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and nearly two dozen allies and partners who’ve signed bilateral security agreements with the war-torn nation.

Among other reveals and plans alongside its NATO allies, the U.S. is also poised to announce new steps to bolster Ukraine’s air defenses and other military capabilities in the near term.

“Together, the Washington summit will send a strong signal to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin that if he thinks he can outlast the coalition of countries supporting Ukraine, he’s dead wrong. We’re also going to send an important message to the rest of the world, including through our partnerships in the Indo-Pacific, as we stand together united and in support of democratic values,” the senior administration official told reporters.

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The Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve (RDER), and the Technology Readiness Experimentation (T-REX) efforts that feed into it, will be heading to Australia, Heidi Shyu told reporters Wednesday on the sidelines of the Potomac Officers Club’s annual Defense R&D Summit.

Australian officials attended T-REX 23-2 last year at Camp Atterbury, Indiana, which was held in partnership with the Indiana National Guard. During that event, DOD conducted 11 full-scale assessments of new warfighting technologies to measure their effectiveness and capability for further development based on the U.S. military’s needs, according to a Pentagon press release.

“The cool thing is, when we did our last technology readiness experimentation in Indiana, I invited the Aussies and U.K. to come down to witness what we’re doing. OK. They were thrilled. Right after that, our key lead flew down to Australia to witness their Autonomous Warrior experimentation. We’re in the process of planning integrated experimentation. We’re literally going to do T-REX in Australia. OK. So this is all the cool stuff we have ongoing and this will eventually lead to one of the RDER experimentations in Australia,” Shyu told DefenseScoop during the meeting with reporters.

The T-REX event Down Under is expected to take place this year, and a RDER experiment there is slated to follow next year, according to Shyu.

RDER, one of Shyu’s signature projects, was established in 2021. The aim is to accelerate technologies through the development pipeline from prototypes to validated military capabilities, working directly with the services, combatant commanders, the Joint Staff and industry partners. It’s focused on capabilities that are key to joint warfighting in a highly contested environment, including counter-command, control, computing, communications, cyber, intelligence, surveillance, reconnaissance and targeting (counter-C5ISRT); contested logistics; joint fires; command and control; and information advantage, she noted during her keynote at the Potomac Officers Club summit.

A goal is to accelerate capability delivery by two to four years compared to the traditional development process.

With T-REX and RDER, troops have an opportunity to put prototypes through their paces and provide feedback to DOD officials and industry.

“The RDER process draws upon the strength of iterative feedback loops between the warfighter and technologies throughout the testing and experimentation phases,” Shyu said.

The Pentagon’s R&E directorate has been working with the acquisition and sustainment directorate to find the best pathways for transitioning capabilities from development into procurement.

The procurement of three RDER capabilities was recently green-lit by the Deputy’s Management Action Group — a key Pentagon resource decision-making board.

“We had a classified DMAG. So, there were three initial experimentations we’ve gone through that proved military utility. And all three of those are moving forward. I can’t really get into a lot of the specifics, because you got to remember one thing, OK — RDER is scenario-based experimentation with a focus on joint warfighting capabilities, right, and pushing capabilities out as quickly as possible. So, these are the capability that’s maturing and going through and pushing out. So, I don’t want to tell China what we’re doing specifically, but the pipeline is started,” Shyu told DefenseScoop last month during a meeting with reporters at the Reagan National Defense Forum.

On Wednesday, Shyu said the services have stepped forward to be the executive agents for these capabilities.

“They actually have POM’d for” them, she said, referring to the program objective memorandum that sets funding plans for acquisitions. “So, this is how we’re pushing stuff through much quicker.”

Officials plan to bring more RDER capabilities to the Deputy’s Management Action Group for review later this year.

“We have stuff … go through the process continuously. Right. So the stuff, like over 30 items that we tested in Indiana, went to Northern Edge [a U.S. military exercise] for experimentation. The stuff that graduates and proves its military utility will come up to the DMAGs ready to accelerate it,” Shyu told reporters.

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Zero trust is a cybersecurity concept and framework that assumes networks are already compromised and require constant monitoring and authentication to protect critical info. Department of Defense components are expected to move to that model by 2027, and bringing overseas allies into the fold could be critical for interoperability.

“There’s a great proof of concept going on in [U.S. Indo-Pacific Command] right now. Their multinational mission force network has gone 100% zero trust, if you will … We’re going to actually exercise this with our multinational partners,” Rear Adm. Stephen Donald, deputy commander of U.S. 10th Fleet, said Monday at the Association of Old Crows annual symposium.

The effort will be part of the next iteration of Keen Edge, which is slated for early 2024. Keen Edge is a biennial exercise that traditionally has involved U.S. and Japanese forces, but Australia is being added as part of a broader push for enhanced trilateral military cooperation.

“Keen Edge 24 (KE24), historically a bilateral Japan Joint Staff (JJS) and U.S. Indo-Pacific Command (USINDOPACOM) command post exercise, will now include the participation of Australia. KE24 will commence on 31 Jan – 7 Feb in various locations throughout the region. KE24 is designed to increase our integrated joint operational capability, refine command and control procedures, and improve interoperability among the participating countries to respond to a variety of crises and contingencies in the Indo-Pacific region,” Indo-Pacom said in a statement to DefenseScoop on Tuesday.

Under the planned construct for the event, “the [international] partner is only allowed into that set of data that they are cleared for [and] that they are authorized for. And it’s all controlled by a built-from-the-ground-up, zero-trust network. We’re gonna see how well that works,” Donald said.

“Right now, you know, it’s a login, multi-authentication factor-based network that then … layers in the appropriate encryption mechanisms so that everything from point A to point B is encrypted. You get a virtual desktop that you can view all the data in. You don’t get necessarily to print stuff out. I think we’re still working through some of that. But you get access to the data … and onboarding seems to be relatively easy through this sort of portal approach,” he added.

Donald sees potential opportunities to expand cooperation over time.

“I think the longer-term piece is, how do we come together across all of our partnerships and build standards together, like zero trust, that we’re able to incorporate into our weapon systems natively? I think that’s going to be a longer road. But we’ll see how this initiative plays out,” he added.

The Pentagon is pursuing a warfighting construct called Combined Joint All-Domain Command and Control (CJADC2) to connect the various sensors, shooters and data streams of the U.S. military services and their international partners, under a more unified network. However, there are security and interoperability challenges associated with that.

Assured command and control, battlespace awareness, and managing cyber and space capabilities will be critical in the future, Donald noted. Allies and partners will need to be part of that equation.

“It is an incredible problem. But I think we have some … technology solutions before us — things like zero trust. Really architecting that well seems to be a solid approach. The other approach is … taking some of our legacy systems and making them as secure and trusted as possible — and then onboarding that,” Donald said. “I think with zero trust, we can really earnestly start sort of a … bring-your-own-device sort of setup for partnerships.”

“We have to figure out if we can get this right,” he added. “Next year … we’ll have probably more information because this will have been rolled out. We’ll use it in a couple multinational exercises in the Pacific Rim, and we’ll have some key lessons learned.”

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Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defence Richard Marles, U.K. Secretary of State for Defence Grant Shapps and U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin, met at the Defense Innovation Unit’s headquarters in Silicon Valley, where the primary focus of their discussions was on advancing Pillar 2 of the trilateral military partnership.

Pillar 2 of AUKUS is geared toward developing and fielding emerging technologies including artificial intelligence and autonomy, advanced cyber, hypersonics and counter-hypersonics, quantum tech, undersea warfare and electronic warfare.

The new innovation challenge falls under that umbrella.

“We have innovation hubs, obviously, in the Defense Department … [that] run prize challenges from time to time, designed to facilitate collecting the best technologies and ideas from the commercial sector with the goal of leveraging those to enhance U.S. military capabilities,” a senior U.S. defense official told reporters on condition of anonymity during a background briefing at the Pentagon ahead of the trilateral meeting and official announcements. “What we’re going to be announcing is doing essentially a trilateral innovation challenge where … each country will release a common innovation prize challenge, and it will be eligible to companies from all three nations. So, it’s illustrative of the way that AUKUS is deepening our ability to innovate together and work together.”

The U.S. and other nations have been moving to boost their offensive and defensive EW arsenals to try to gain an edge and protect themselves against growing threats in the electromagnetic spectrum.

“The first area that we’re focusing on [for the new innovation challenge] is electronic warfare, because we view enhancing our electronic warfare capabilities as critical from the perspective of all of our defense strategies. And it’s an area that we’ve been working together on in AUKUS,” the official told reporters. “I think for the innovation prize challenge, we were really focused on what are areas that our national defense strategies across all three countries identify as important, and … where we are working together in AUKUS, and where we see opportunities for further collaboration. And electronic warfare clearly fits into all three categories. You know, it’s clear that enhancing our capabilities in that arena will be essential on the 21st century battlefield.”

They declined to reveal how much money will be up for grabs for the prize competitions.

“We don’t have anything we’re ready to announce today on the specific dollar amounts involved, other than to say that we think that it will provide important incentives for industry partners from all three countries to contribute ideas to the first challenge focused on electronic warfare … The Defense Innovation Unit has been spearheading some of our efforts in the United States. And so our plan is for the release of the first prize challenge in early 2024,” the official told DefenseScoop at the briefing.

DIU will be overseeing the competition on the U.S. side, according to the official.

They did not disclose what the next focus of the innovation series will be after EW.

“But I think that future topics are likely to, you know, hit some of the same criteria that I just laid out and that capability areas that we’re working on in AUKUS and which are central to all of our national defense strategies,” the official said.

AUKUS leaders are also set to announce other initiatives, including a new series of experimentation and exercises focused on autonomous capabilities in the maritime domain.

“It’s a bold new effort aimed at testing, developing and delivering advanced maritime autonomous systems to our warfighters,” the senior DOD official told reporters during the background briefing.

It will involve a series of integrated trilateral activities aimed at boosting capability development and improving interoperability, the senior DOD official told reporters during the background briefing.

The experiments and exercises will provide additional opportunities for defense companies to participate in technology demonstrations, development and delivery, they noted.

The official suggested the events could include tech that’s similar to what Task Force 59 under U.S. Navy Central Command has been using in the Middle East region. The task force has been using a variety of unmanned systems, sensors and artificial intelligence capabilities to create a “mesh network” for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions.

The unit also recently successfully tested the ability of a robotic surface vessel to launch a loitering munition and hit its target.

More broadly, the alliance is establishing an AUKUS industry forum with government and industry representatives from the three countries to help inform policy, technical and commercial frameworks to facilitate the development and delivery of advanced capabilities that the nations are pursuing. The first meeting is slated for the first half of next year, according to the official.

The announcements came as the alliance is gearing up to deliver AI algorithms to their militaries in an effort to bolster intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR), precision targeting and other mission areas.

The nations have been testing common algorithms on multiple systems, according to the official. As an example, they pointed to the P-8 maritime patrol aircraft. Using the AI technology will allow military personnel to more quickly process large amounts of data from all three nations’ sonobuoys, thereby enhancing AUKUS’ anti-submarine warfare capabilities, they noted.

“In April, we successfully conducted an autonomous swarm demonstration in the U.K. In October, we conducted trials of trusted robotics and autonomous systems in South Australia. Because we’re focused on getting capabilities to the warfighter in AUKUS, we’re integrating these technologies into national programs starting next year, focused first on the land and maritime domains,” the official said.

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