The Emerging, Innovative Relationship Between Silicon Valley and the U.S. Department of Defense

Digital technology is transforming 21st century warfare, where future victories will go to countries with the most sophisticated applications of artificial intelligence (AI), human augmentation, drone technology, and Big Data. In the United States, the growing closeness of private Silicon Valley startups and enterprises with the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) is pushing the U.S. military to the forefront.

 

Big deals between the military and Big Tech continue to grow at a time when they are needed most. “For cyber, for electronic warfare, for misinformation… we need to be shifting more dollars to those domains, says Michael Brown, director of the innovative Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) within the DoD—a group highly connected with Silicon Valley companies. Some of the top names in technology are leading the charge as well—Google’s Cloud division is developing a proposal to contribute to the Joint Warfighting Cloud Capability program, for example, which the DoD describes as an effort to “achieve dominance in both traditional and non-traditional warfighting domains.”

 

The Pentagon’s focus on non-traditional battlefields comes after a series of unprecedented cyberattacks and threats posed by some of the U.S.’s most prominent opponents on the global stage: China and Russia, who have become increasingly bold in their efforts to disrupt U.S. infrastructure and assets abroad. That’s why the DIU is investing heavily in Silicon Valley technology—for example, by offering Amazon and Microsoft $50 million contracts to “identify objects from drone and other aerial footage,” as Forbes describes.

 

Beyond surveillance, cybersecurity, and counterintelligence applications, the DoD is establishing more tenuous investments in weapons-oriented tech. Despite some headlines, Silicon Valley companies have broad support among their employees for taking on military contracts, which boost business but also solve problems in the national interest. Here we explore how this relationship is evolving, and what technologies we can expect the U.S. to bring to the world stage.

 

Understanding the DoD-Silicon Valley Relationship

 

Silicon Valley began its close relationship with the military during the Cold War when microchip, aerospace, and defense technologies contributed to U.S. weaponry stockpiles. This represented essential business for early companies in the space—for example, Fairchild Semiconductor, an originator of the modern tech industry, made 80% of its revenue from the U.S. military at one time, Fast Company reports. 

 

Today, the DIU is taking a more distributed approach to innovation. Rather than partnering with only a few enterprise companies, Brown and his associates are offering up millions of dollars in contracts to companies of all sizes, in all different areas of tech. For every faceoff like that of Amazon and Microsoft over the DoD’s AI-driven intelligent operations initiative Project Maven, there are startups like Shield AI, Skydio, and Anduril developing specialized drone technologies to meet a variety of defense needs.

 

Established in 2015, the DIU is the department’s attempt to align their own slow-moving bureaucracy that would review new technologies only every two years with the fast-moving world of Silicon Valley. The effort has been largely successful in that particular goal, at least in terms of accelerating competition and cost-effective options for the DoD.

 

 

In order to understand how the nature of the DIU’s relationship with Silicon Valley companies, let’s take a closer look at three areas where new technology investments are transforming modern warfare:

 

1. Autonomous Drones

 

The DoD wants self-piloting drones that will track objects and maneuver in difficult combat situations, but also monitor environments and military assets for extended periods of time. Anduril, who is already producing sensor technologies for U.S. Custom and Border Protection, is developing autonomous “Ghost” drones that may aid in some of these efforts. Meanwhile Saildrone, a company that originally focused on sea exploration, may provide the U.S. Navy with drones that will monitor international waters near Russia, among other potential use cases.

 

2. Human Augmentation

 

In 2021, Microsoft was awarded a 10-year, $22 billion contract to supply 120,000 U.S. soldiers with augmented reality (AR) headsets, The Financial Times reports. But other forms of human augmentation are gaining interest at the Pentagon as well. Both Google and Microsoft had been in multi-million-dollar discussions about image and video analysis technology that would help human users identify objects and threats with the support AI that ingests visual data and directs those users’ attention. Project Maven, for example, is the DoD’s AI and machine learning initiative that “seeks to reduce the time required for decision making to a fraction of the time needed without AI/ML,” as Forbes describes.

 

3. Cloud Enablement

 

The DoD is seeking out partnerships that will enable the secure, tactical use of cloud technologies as well, especially in support of AI-based analytical capabilities like those described above. The technology will need to enable secure access to critical warfighting data that might be compromising in the hands of opposing states; it also must be nimble enough to provide advanced data analytics for timely decisions and connect with tactical edge devices, as a  2021 DoD contractor pre-solicitation document describes.

 

Responsibility in Facing Down an Emerging Threat

 

There is a clear impetus for the DIU to move towards adoption at these accelerated rates as state-supported digital attacks increase. This is especially true in terms of cybersecurity due to the aftermath of the 2020 SolarWinds hack, a reportedly Russian-backed attack that left several U.S. government agencies exposed. But the Pentagon is partnering with Silicon Valley to optimize its operations and assets more broadly as described above as well.

 

Despite these precedents, the Pentagon also is addressing real concerns about the risks associated with using intelligent, automated technologies on the battlefield. This is especially true with regard to combinations of machine learning, AI, and robotics, each of which can be applied to functions and decisions normally performed by human beings—often in combination. Indeed, there are healthy concerns about ethical and long-term implications should AIs control powerful weapons on either side of a conflict.

 

Companies are approaching their suggested use cases for their technologies differently with these concerns in mind. Certainly, some AI functions and even drones will apply in combat conditions, perhaps with the use of weaponry. Meanwhile Skydio, which manufactures aerial drowns, has taken a firm stance against weaponization—the less automation when it comes to lethal weapons, the better.

 

Still, once a company contracts with the DoD, the use of its technology is largely at the discretion of the Pentagon. In their efforts to promote public transparency in these areas, the DUI has developed its own “responsible artificial intelligence guidelines that it will require third-party developers to use when building AI for the military, whether that AI is for an HR system or target recognition” as a result, as MIT Technology Review describes. 

 

Despite these concerns, most AI professionals seem to support their tech companies partnering directly with the Pentagon. In late 2019 and 2020, 78% of AI professionals were either supportive or neutral about working with the Pentagon, the Center for Security and Emerging Technology at Georgetown University found. Thomas Kurian, chief executive officer of Google Cloud, summarized this sentiment best when describing his group’s own initiatives with the DoD: “we believe Google Cloud should seek to serve the government where it is capable of doing so and where the work meets Google’s principles and our company’s values,” as CNBC reports.

 

Inspiring Innovation and Societal Benefits

 

What’s more, there are clear financial and societal benefits to the DoD’s new approach to tech sourcing. The DIU’s approach to financing and implementing leading technologies is spurning innovation among private sector tech companies, which will be a boon to consumer markets that otherwise may not have been possible due to the inherent risks of the private sector.

 

Here’s how that works: The DIU’s 2020 annual report indicates the group has provided $650 million in awards since 2016, dozens of which have led to highly lucrative contracts with the Pentagon. Although government contracts tend to yield low profit margins, they do provide consistent, long-term revenues that aren’t vulnerable to market fluctuations in the same way as private sector markets. These contracts therefore provide some stability to companies as they innovate and take worthwhile risks.

 

The impact of the DoD’s investments in new technologies will reach well beyond combat scenarios as well. With roughly 1.3 million active contracts at any given time, the DoD’s tech investments span finance, apparel, healthcare, software, transportation, and countless other industries; many of these technologies will have applications in private markets, thanks to the DoD’s early financial support.

 

Conclusion

 

The U.S. Government has a long-standing tradition of partnering with private sector technology companies that has been foundational to its military progress. That relationship has blossomed into one that spans industries and will continue to drive private sector innovation well into the future.

 

It’s through integration of public sector initiatives with private sector innovation that democratic, free market societies will lead the way in terms of military technology progress and ensure those tools are used in a measured and ethical way. The innovative approach represented through the DIU suggests new opportunities for these companies and broader society as technology grows more sophisticated.

 

Uvation is Guiding Public Sector Innovation

 

Uvation’s team of forward thinkers are empowering public sector agencies as well as their private sector partners with transformational IT solutions. Contact us today and discover how our application, cloud, infrastructure, and systems integration capabilities can modernize your core operations.