Details on the decision are sparse in the documents, but officials wrote that the Chief Digital and AI Office’s CTO “no longer exists or manages resources.” 

President Donald Trump directed federal agencies at the start of his second term to drastically reduce their workforces and assess existing contracts, with aims to ultimately cut back on what his team views as wasteful spending and inefficiencies. The efforts have included initiatives overseen by Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, teams.

While AI is a major priority for the U.S. government under Trump, since then, the Pentagon’s CDAO has seen an exodus of senior leaders and other technical employees.

“As part of broader DOD efficiency efforts, CDAO realized organization efficiencies in FY26, including eliminating the CTO directorate,” a CDAO official told DefenseScoop on Wednesday. “This move has minimal mission impact as CDAO has a strong technical workforce embedded within each of its directorates.”

Budget materials show that the directorate was allocated more than $340 million in fiscal 2024.

The CDAO official declined to share more information regarding how the CTO’s employees, responsibilities and investments were dispersed following the elimination.

Shortly after standing up the CDAO in June 2022, Defense Department leadership hired nearly a dozen senior leaders to serve in its top positions — including Bill Streilein as inaugural CTO. Streilein had previously served as a longtime leader at MIT’s Lincoln Laboratory and is now back at the lab working as a member of its principal staff.

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The new priorities include a focus on path-breaking technology including artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, next-generation telecommunications networks like 5G and network-of-network systems. Thursday’s list of priority areas is the first look at a full DOD tech strategy that is expected to be published in late spring or early summer following the new national defense strategy, a DOD spokesperson told FedScoop.

Heidi Shyu, the undersecretary for research and engineering, said the DOD’s research enterprise will re-center its work on the pillars of “mission focus, foundation building, and succeeding through teamwork.”

“To maintain the United States military’s technological advantage, the Department will champion research, science, technology, engineering, and innovation,” a memo from Shyu, who is also known as the CTO, states.

The operative word for winning in areas of innovation will be “cooperation,” according to the memo. Included in the document is a list of groups Shyu wants the document to work more closely with: the defense industrial base, academia, federally funded research and development centers, university affiliated research centers, small businesses, new entrants, startups and international allies.

The long list also includes cooperation “with our competitors” as a goal.

“Successful competition requires imagining our military capability as an ever-evolving collective, not a static inventory of weapons in development or sustainment,” Shyu wrote.

The new list of “critical technology areas” include:

• Biotechnology
• Quantum science
• Future generation wireless technology
• Advanced Materials
• Trusted AI and Autonomy
• Integrated Network system-of-systems
• Microelectronics
• Space Technology
• Renewable Energy Generation and Storage
• Advanced Computing and Software
• Human-Machine Interfaces
• Directed Energy
• Hypersonics
• Integrated Sensing and Cyber

Commenting on the new list of priorities, Margarita Konaev, a research fellow at Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology, told FedScoop that it makes sense for the DOD to continue to invest in AI and cybersecurity.

“I think this is an area that over the past year conversation has increased about it,” she said, adding that the list shows the department’s desire to move further towards a battlefield reality where AI-enabled machines work alongside troops.

Editor’s note: This story was updated to include comment from Margarita Konaev.

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