Conference Presentation, Keynote
Collaborative Disruption at DoD
- The 2024 DoD R&D budget request is $145 billion, projected to exceed Cold War spending levels and surpass the combined prior-year R&D expenditures of Alphabet, Apple, Meta, and Microsoft, while the requested procurement budget is $170 billion.
- Since 2021, approximately 2,000 deals totaling over $100 billion have been executed by U.S. defense tech-focused startups, scale-ups, and private venture capital, driven primarily by the strategic behavior of the People's Republic of China.
- The Replicator initiative aims to field thousands of attributable autonomous systems across multiple domains within an 18-to-24-month cycle, with the DoD planning to submit a spend plan and reprogramming request to Congress to fund the effort shortly.
- A two-year fielding cycle is intended to become the standard for DoD acquisitions, contrasting with the historical five-to-ten-year timeline for scaling standard capabilities and the five-month duration achieved in aligning leaders and validating needs for Replicator.
- The DoD plans to replicate the accelerated Replicator model in areas beyond all-domain autonomous systems once the initial proof is established, while simultaneously iterating on institutional and cultural changes within the innovation ecosystem.
- Future success in enforcing contracts, protecting intellectual property, and hiring a talented workforce is contingent upon upholding the rule of law, maintaining educational institutions, and implementing favorable immigration policies.
- The outlook posits that private sector dynamism and American innovation depend on the success of American democracy, though it explicitly warns that the urgency of moving fast to win wars must never compromise the rule of law or the oath to the U.S. Constitution.