⚡ Nexus 24 special edition
Breaking our usual cadence for today's newsletter
Welcome back to the Nexus Newsletter, Applied Intuition Defense’s biweekly newsletter covering the latest in national security, autonomy, and software-defined warfare.
Today, we’re pivoting from our usual content for this special edition of the newsletter recapping Nexus 24. Keep reading to see highlights from this year’s event and our newest launch 👀.
Get in the driver’s seat of off-road autonomy
This month we launched our off-road autonomy stack that can transform any off-road fleet into autonomous machines capable of traversing diverse terrains and navigating complex environments.
As our readers know, off-road autonomy is highly complex. In defense, using unmanned vehicles in reconnaissance and active missions can enhance capabilities, reduce cognitive load on the operator, and protect personnel in hostile or unpredictable environments.
Watch below to see how we’re powering autonomous systems on diverse terrains:
That’s a wrap on Nexus 24!
Thanks for joining us earlier this month for Nexus, our annual thought leadership forum. This year’s event put a spotlight on software — software development, industry hurdles, and perspectives from senior military leaders and Congress.
Check out some highlights from the day below:
GEN James Mingus, 39th Vice Chief of Staff of the US Army, was joined on stage by Bryan Clark, senior fellow and director of the Center for Defense Concepts and Technology at the Hudson Institute, for a fireside chat on the Army’s historic digital modernization efforts.
During another fireside chat, Young Bang, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Army (Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology), sat down with Peter Ludwig, co-founder and CTO of Applied Intuition, to discuss the service’s approach to software.
Key takeaways from GEN Mingus and Young Bang:
💡 The Army wants to “maximize” what industry is doing with software development “at a much faster rate,” Mingus said. “Everything we bring in, we want it to have an open architecture and we want it to be software-defined instead of hardware-defined,” he added.
💡 While lot of the tech that China’s automotive industry is using might be the same as the US, the two key differences are speed and scale. Those are “the kind of transformation efforts that we’re trying to drive in the Army,” Bang said. “Leveraging industry, but also doing it faster and scaling that.”
💡 The Army sees “tons of applications” in the kill chain where artificial intelligence can help speed up the decision cycle. Everything on the battlefield today is network-centric. There is nothing on the battlefield that isn’t connected either by a sensor or some component of the network.
💡 Data integration is a good first step, but it’s insufficient. “Think of a puzzle that you put together,” Mingus said. “One dimensional, laying on the table…Data orchestration now takes that and moves it into a multi-dimensional kind of component.”
Rep. Rob Wittman (VA-01), vice chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, provided the audience with a congressional perspective on some of the most pressing efforts underway in the Department of Defense.
“The Pentagon needs to be a software-defined, software-directed agency, not a hardware-directed agency,” Wittman said during his fireside chat. “That’s all they know is hardware.”
Our friend Wendy Anderson from Palantir spoke about the difficult decisions defense technologists face.
“I think companies — start-ups, scale-ups, our ecosystem — should take sides. And I think if they’re going to do that, then they really need to be clear about what the consequences are,” Anderson said. “The founders of Palantir decided 21 years ago [that] we’re not going to sell technology to the Russians, we’re not going to sell technology to the Chinese…that’s pretty interesting, especially now.”
We look forward to engaging with our readers on topics like those discussed at this year’s event. If you missed Nexus, you can watch all keynotes and panels below or on our YouTube channel.
🗞️ Read the media coverage from Nexus 24
Breaking Defense | Wittman: Pentagon needs to ‘narrow the scope’ of CJADC2
Key quote: “‘You know, you can build the greatest house in the world. But if you don’t build a really strong foundation, all of a sudden you look at [it] and go man, this house is going to tumble in because we didn’t do the early work the right way,’ [Rep. Rob] Wittman said. ‘So really what the Pentagon needs to focus on, is that foundational work to say, let’s get the foundation of CJDAC2 right, and take that first step.’”
C4ISRNET | Defense Innovation Unit seeks systems to counter Red Sea drone attacks
Key quote: “‘We’ve really got to focus on, how do we get after those more advanced capabilities . . . and how do we protect ourselves from adversarial threats that are employing this technology as well,’ [Matthew Way] said during Applied Intuition’s June 13 Nexus conference in Washington, DC.”
Inside Defense | Wittman: Fixed-price deals are the ‘way to go’ on software
Key quote: “‘I think negotiated, fixed-cost contracts is the way to go on software,’ [Rep. Rob] Wittman said last week during an event hosted by Applied Intuition.
His comments come as the Pentagon and industry are split over the efficiency of those kinds of deals, which require companies to absorb any additional costs related to a program when technology development goes over budget and can often cause significant delays.
‘It’s a dynamic acquisition,’ Wittman said, adding ‘there’s also an element too where the government needs to be the systems integrator. When they do that, they do it effectively.’”
Inside Defense | Navy unable to leverage all warship sensor data due to limited storage
Key quote: “[LT Artem] Sherbinin also said software is the Navy’s best bet for improving fleet capabilities before 2027 -- the year by which the Defense Department believes it must be prepared to defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion.
If this countdown is accurate, ‘that means the cycle time we have to deploy software technology is much shorter and we also know that new hardware isn’t coming,’ he said. ‘Ships take years to make. Sensors for those ships take years to make. Software is all we have.’”
Republic World | US Defense Satellites Record First Hypersonic Flight Test, Track Critical Data
Key quote: “Amid escalating drone attacks by Iran-backed Houthi rebels targeting ships in the Red Sea, the U.S. Navy and the Defense Innovation Unit (DIU) have initiated a partnership to develop a counter uncrewed aircraft system. Named Counter NEXT, the program aims to swiftly prototype and deploy systems capable of disabling or shooting down adversary drones globally.”