🎉 Announcing our Nexus 24 speaker lineup
You don't want to miss this.
Welcome back to the Nexus Newsletter, Applied Intuition Defense’s biweekly newsletter covering the latest in national security, autonomy, and software-defined warfare.
In today’s edition, we unveil the speaker lineup for our annual Nexus symposium and give a recap of an event the team recently attended. Plus, a new blog and news we’re reading.
Nexus 24 lineup
With less than one month remaining until our annual thought leadership forum, we want to give our subscribers a look at our speaker lineup. At Nexus 24, you’ll hear from the leaders, visionaries, and warfighters doing the hard work to build tomorrow’s Joint Force. Our speakers will dive deep into the future of software-defined warfare and other topics. Here’s who you can expect to hear from:
You can also see the full list of speakers at applied.co/nexus. Stay tuned as we announce an agenda and information on a post-event reception at the REACH.
If you haven’t already registered, click below to RSVP while there’s still spots open!
But, while we wait…
As Nexus 24 approaches, we have an exciting new webinar that will tee up some of the topics we’ll explore next month. Tune in to our newest Nexus Talks webinar, Beyond the Buzzwords: Accelerating the Software-Defined Force, next Monday, May 22. Click the picture or button below to register for what promises to be an intriguing discussion.
Join John Mark Wilson, Head of Strategy and Communications for Applied Intuition Defense, and Bryan Clark, Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Defense Concepts and Technology at the Hudson Institute, as they discuss building out the software-defined force.
You can also watch our most recent Nexus Talks webinar on lessons the Department of Defense can take from the conflict in Ukraine here.
ICYMI: AI Expo for National Competitiveness
Last week, the team attended the Special Competitive Studies Project’s inaugural AI Expo for National Competitiveness. The expo ran concurrently with the Ash Carter Exchange and featured incredible speakers who spoke about how the US has an advantage in software platforms and how software is essential part of the OODA loop, among lots of other interesting discussions.
Thousands of attendees interested in how transformative technologies like AI and autonomy are revolutionizing the future of national security came together for a packed two-day event.
Want to work on these technologies and more? We’re hiring!
Blog: Synthetic Data for Action Recognition and Terrain Segmentation
Engineering teams can use Applied Intuition’s Synthetic Datasets for on-road autonomy development such as improving rare class detection, constructing validation sets, and even basic image classification. Beyond these on-road applications, teams can also utilize Synthetic Datasets for different machine learning (ML) tasks in a variety of other domains, including off-road and aerial use cases.
During the past year, Applied Intuition has partnered with the University of Southern California (USC), the Army Research Laboratory (ARL), and other academic institutions and research labs to show how its synthetic data can improve ML model performance for specific off-road segmentation and action recognition tasks—two complex tasks where collecting and labeling real data can be difficult, if not impossible.
Our team recently attended the SPIE Defense + Commercial Sensing conference, hosted in Washington D.C., to present its work and two publications. Check out our new blog here or by clicking below!
News we’re reading
Breaking Defense | Top of Marine’s wish list: More capable drones, and ways to kill them
Key quote: “The threat is evolving in real time,” [Lt. Col. Robert Barclay at Modern Day Marine] said. “The whole Group 1 to Group 5 start to really get kind of nebulous as these [drones] are able to do things that traditionally they would not have been able to do.”
Our take: The evolution of tactics & counter tactics, learning, and executing at the speed of war are operational and tactical challenges uniquely coupled to technological change at a speed at which the battlefield has rarely seen. The U.S. Marine Corps acquisition and implementation of C-UAS technologies such as the Marine Air Defense Integrated System have showcased rapid technological integration in parallel to doctrinal improvements.
This turning point requires a closer and more consistent relationship between industry, the acquirer, and the operator. In order to achieve speed of development, iteration, and usefulness in combat, acquisition strategies need to accommodate flexibility and agility into the traditional three-legged-stool of acquisition. At SOF Week this year it was evident that UxS manufacturing and development took a front row. The Marines have leaned into this more agile model with the Organic Precision Fires-Light (OPF-L) System Development Contract.
Improvements in hardware are not the only thing improving rapidly. During his SOF Week keynote speech, SOCOM’s senior enlisted leader Army Command Sgt. Maj. Shane Shorter, said “Robotics, ubiquitous surveillance tools of every kind, and of course, artificial intelligence are all creating wicked problems.” These “wicked” problems will only continue to complicate warfare in each domain. Technological disruption impacting warfare is still at its core, technological disruption.
The commercial industry has also been faced with the need for rapid response and integration of new technologies to sustain a competitive position in the marketplace. In the autonomous vehicle space, internal digital transformation coupled with efficient development and engineering methodologies have been game changers for companies looking to bring products to market quickly and sustain those capabilities.
At its core, the Department will need to more efficiently close the communications loop between the operator/requirements owner, acquirer, and capability provider(s) in order to ensure the U.S. and its allies are able to gain and sustain a competitive and relevant technological edge in this new era of war.
C4ISRNET | Lawmakers propose DIU-managed military testing and evaluation cell
Key quote: “The effort would begin as a three-year pilot program starting in FY25 with the goal of making it easier for high-need technologies to move through traditional testing and validation processes.
‘In carrying out the pilot program, the director of the Defense Innovation Unit shall conduct continuous and iterative test and evaluation of technologies that have the potential to provide warfighting capabilities to the Department of Defense in the near-term and mid-term timeframes,’ the provision states.
The proposal aims to address two persistent DOD challenges — a lack of sufficient testing infrastructure and the often drawn-out process to get a high-need prototype into the hands of military personnel.”
Our take: While it’s great to see DIU’s success in moving fast and executing well being recognized by Congress, handing the organization responsibility for T&E could be a double-edged sword that dilutes its mission and puts it at odds with other organizations tasked with T&E like DOT&E and TRMC.
It is important that to stay agile, DIU remains focused on its core mission. Instead of rewarding DIU’s good work — which is down to it remaining small, retaining a culture of innovation, and working with commercial companies — with an additional responsibility, Congress should think about how it can spread the DIU mentality to the organizations tasked with T&E.