The next chapter for Applied Intuition Defense
Nexus is back, a new GM, defense website & news we're reading.
Welcome back to the Nexus Newsletter. We have several new announcements in today’s edition, including a “save the date” for Nexus 24, a fresh new brand for our defense business, an exciting addition to our D.C. team, and lots more. Let’s get into it.
Save the date for Nexus 24
Our annual Nexus symposium is back this year on June 13 in Washington, D.C.! This year, we are hosting it in a new location: The REACH at the Kennedy Center. It will be a stunning backdrop to a great event.
Based on what worked and didn’t from Nexus 23 and 22, this year’s event will feature new keynotes, panels, tech talks, and increased networking opportunities. We have an all-star lineup of speakers including senior officials and warfighters from the Department of Defense and the tech industry.
Event details and registration will be coming soon. Save the date to make sure that Nexus 24 is on your calendar. See you there!
Introducing Applied Intuition Defense
On to some other exciting news: We’ve rebranded to Applied Intuition Defense, complete with an updated logo and fresh new website that showcases our work in the defense and national security space. This is more than just a new brand — We’re doubling down on our commitment to providing proven dual-use applications for our mature software solutions.
Our readers know that autonomous systems are rapidly changing the battlefield. Critical to the future of autonomy in warfighting will be a software sustainment solution. That is, autonomy providers will need to retrain new software with DOD data to fix failure modes and support new mission sets. AI software is more dynamic than traditional software. A computer vision model trained to detect ground assets likely won’t work to detect naval vessels, but the software to check the battery status works regardless of the environment. Software sustainment will be critical to making onboard AI relevant over the lifetime of the vehicle.
Watch our video to see this concept in action:
Our defense business is growing
Along with our rebrand, we recently brought on Jason Brown as the first General Manager of Applied Intuition Defense. Formerly the Head of Professional Services for Defense at Google Public Sector, we’re thrilled to have Jason’s experience operating with defense customers and a deep knowledge of the technical challenges to enable software-defined warfare.
Jason is an adjunct assistant professor at Georgetown University, a visiting associate professor at The Bush School of Government and Public Service, and previously served as an intelligence officer in the U.S. Air Force. Brown played a foundational role in standing up Project Maven, the DOD’s flagship effort to speed up the use of artificial intelligence across the military. He also founded the Air Force Artificial Intelligence Accelerator at MIT and led a humanitarian assistance/disaster relief initiative for the Pentagon’s Joint Artificial Intelligence Center (now subsumed into the Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Office, or CDAO.)
You’ll hear more from Jason in this newsletter soon, as well as at Nexus 24.
News we’re reading
Autonomy is everywhere in defense these days. Make sense of the latest headlines by reading key quotes from recent articles of interest, plus brief commentary from Applied Intuition’s government team, below:
Breaking Defense | DoD selects first Replicator systems, eyeing software focus for second iteration
Key quote: “We are in the stages of finalizing proposals for what we call tranche two of Replicator, which is another…batch of platforms that can be accelerated to meet that 18- to 24-month timeline,” Navy Capt. Alex Campbell said.
“And I think in tranche two… the direction from senior leadership is to also focus on the software that enables all those platforms to function and to exist to work together and to do things that, frankly, we’ve never seen on the battlefield before,” Campbell continued.
Pentagon leadership has selected which systems will be fielded first under Replicator, the Department’s effort to counter China’s military mass by cranking out thousands of attritable autonomous systems across multiple domains within two years, and now senior leadership is honing in on software for the second tranche of the effort. The initiative is designed to help existing autonomy programs summit roadblocks that are preventing them from delivering autonomy at scale in the short term.
Our take: We’re glad to see the discussion around Replicator shift from a focus on the systems themselves to the software. Getting the software right on a regular basis in light of rapidly evolving battlefield conditions is arguably the most challenging part of developing, fielding and sustaining autonomous systems at scale. In order to get the software piece of the equation right, the Department needs to invest in a software-tooling-based testing infrastructure for autonomy. DSD Hicks has tasked CDAO to serve as the data and AI hub for the Replicator initiative. At a time of confusion around who “owns” defense innovation, this is a good division of labor between DIU and CDAO–DIU provides the contracting vehicles for rapid procurement of critical capabilities while CDAO provides the software sustainment platform to ensure interoperability and consistent upgrades based on the latest battlefield conditions. In the end, the question is if the software sustainment platform will leverage commercially proven best practices to ensure success.
DefenseScoop | What’s next for the CJADC2 minimum viable capability
Key quote: Earlier this month, the Pentagon announced a “minimum viable capability,” or MVP, for CJADC2, or Combined Joint All Domain Command and Control, DOD’s concept for joint warfighting that aims to link data to command centers to shooters.
Though DOD hasn’t said what exactly the MVC is, or where it’ll be deployed, the Army is reportedly putting it to test now at this year’s Project Convergence experiments, which started Feb. 23 and run through March 20.
“My goal is to have this ‘data mesh’ in place — with the right data, at the right place, for the right person. How do I drive that forward? Since I work in the Pentagon, I find the right use cases that are going to bring the most value as quickly as possible. The MVC is the set of use cases that we tackled first. It’s not all of them by a longshot,” CDAO Craig Martell said.
Our take: This is great to see as an initial capability, but scaling this will require a degree of coordination across systems that we haven’t seen yet (and would have seen). CJADC2 at its core requires coordination between currently disparate vehicle systems. But most military vehicles are hardware-centric, exquisite, and developed largely in isolation of other systems. Acquisition strategy will need to rethink that and evaluate how a new vehicle supports CJADC2 coordination. Building vehicles that are designed for software capabilities also requires new approaches to vehicle architecture, such as designing for greater compute and more integrated processing across vehicle components. Automotive manufacturers (OEMs) have been making this transition over the last several years, and those lessons apply to the next generation of all-domain vehicles. Lastly, there needs to be an integration test environment for validating JADC2 collaboration. Modular Open Systems Approach-compliant systems should be able to isolate their autonomy kit and integrate them into a joint testing environment to demonstrate their ability to collaborate without having to run a massive joint exercise.
Politico | US Army is slashing thousands of jobs in major revamp to prepare for future wars
Key Quote: “The planned overhaul comes after two decades of war in Iraq and Afghanistan that forced the Army to quickly and dramatically expand in order to fill the brigades sent to the battlefront. That included a massive counter-insurgency mission to battle al-Qaida, the Taliban and the Islamic State group.
“Over time the military’s focus has shifted to great power competition from adversaries such as China and Russia, and threats from Iran and North Korea. And the war in Ukraine has shown the need for greater emphasis on air-defense systems and high-tech abilities both to use and counter airborne and sea-based drones.”
Our Take: US Defense Intelligence reported in December 2023 that approximately 315,000 Russian soldiers have been wounded or killed in the war in Ukraine. Even with AI and advanced technologies, capacity (as opposed to readiness and capability) is still an important factor for deterrence and actually prevailing in a potential near-peer war (for perspective, the total US Army strength is about 445,000 active duty soldiers, according to the article).
While realigning the Army’s force structure to be prepared for “large-scale combat operations” makes sense, today’s ever-increasing security challenges demand more capacity, not less. With a smaller force, the Army is perhaps signaling that advanced technology will be filling the gap. Ultimately, we must be thinking of autonomy and other advanced technology in terms of sustaining and building capacity, not just capability. To do otherwise is a great risk.