Here’s how the Pentagon lends a helping hand to Silicon Valley startups
All the details on the Defense Innovation Unit of the US Department of Defense: it is the office that works with startups hoping to do business with the Pentagon, led by a former Apple executive
Create a bridge between Silicon Valley startups and the Pentagon to deploy military-relevant commercial technologies on a larger scale.
This is the goal of the Defense Innovation Unit of the US Department of Defense. Since its inception in 2015, the office has awarded startups 62 contracts worth $5.5 billion, in deals for products including autonomous drones and cybersecurity software, Bloomberg reports in a recent feature.
By 2022 alone, partly thanks to its speed of contracting, the DIU had moved 52 projects supported by multi-year production contracts from the military services worth up to $4.9 billion to the battlefield. Such projects include maneuverable drones, artificial intelligence systems and satellite remote sensing technologies. The office oversees the Department of Defense's efforts to make the most disruptive technology available to the military, including the Replicator initiative, which aims to field thousands of autonomous systems within 18 to 24 months.
As part of the government funding bill signed by President Joe Biden in March, the Defense Innovation Unit's annual budget will rise to more than $900 million this year, from $191 million in 2023.
However, as Bloomberg notes, “many investors have complained that DIU often awards grants for technology pilot programs that take too long to turn into full-scale contracts or, more often, never go anywhere. Low chances of success are bad for startups, which can't build businesses with one-off checks.”
All the details.
LED BY FORMER APPLE EXECUTIVE
Heading the Defense Innovation Unit is Doug Beck, a US Navy reservist who served in Iraq and Afghanistan, and is also a former Apple executive.
Beck believes he can be a translator between the private and public sectors. “I speak both languages fluently,” he tells Bloomberg . At Apple, he led sales in the Americas and Northeast Asia before moving to institutional customers such as health systems, schools and governments. During his time in the Cupertino Colossus, he often carried his military uniform in the trunk of his car. He also served as an advisor to Ash Carter, President Obama's defense secretary, helped pioneer the idea for IHL, and worked part-time for the office in his role as a reservist, helping introduce people to startups, summarizes Bloomberg .
The former Apple executive said he was humbled by investors' feedback, although he agreed with their assessment of the US Department of Defense. “We would end up with fantastic prototypes that had some demand from the department,” Beck admitted, “but they couldn't get to the next level of scale that we need for strategic impact and that they need for return on investment”.
THE STRATEGY OF THE PENTAGON'S DEFENSE INNOVATION UNIT WITH STARTUPS
As Bloomberg explains, the belief behind the Defense Innovation Unit has always been that much of the technology the U.S. military needs probably doesn't come from defense contractors like Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman and Raytheon who excel at building fighter jets. combat and submarines, rather from startups and other unconventional defense contractors.
“The Pentagon has not fully adapted to this change,” Paul Scharre, executive vice president and director of studies at the Center for a New American Security, a think tank focused on national defense, told the US newspaper. “You can't buy software the same way you buy an aircraft carrier.”
SUCCESS CASES: FROM ANDURIL TO SHIELD AI
Meanwhile, since Diu's founding some of the startups it has worked with have made it big such as Anduril Industries, which makes drones and surveillance systems, and Shield AI, which focuses on drones. Both have become multibillion-dollar companies largely due to their ability to win military contracts. However, the Pentagon is notoriously difficult to do business with. Critics of the Pentagon's approach – including Michael Brown, who led the IHL until 2022 – say the lack of funding and support within the department has weakened the office, Bloomberg recalls.
According to Doug Philippone, head of defense at Palantir Technologies Inc. and co-founder of Snowpoint Ventures, a firm that backs defense technology startups, investors need to know that the Pentagon is willing to consider more than just symbolic contracts. The sector can only develop if there are more success stories. “I think it's really important for America that this new IHL is successful,” Philippone told the American newspaper. “I am hopeful but skeptical.”
THE NEW ROUTE OF THE DEFENSE INNOVATION UNIT
In the strategy published on February 7 , Beck said that Diu's next chapter will focus on deploying commercial technology into the military much more quickly. The 10-page document outlines the Defense Innovation Unit's expanding role and outlines steps the organization is taking to ensure the department takes full advantage of commercially derived capabilities to counter threats from China and Russia.
The goal is for the Defense Innovation Unit to award technology pilot projects only when there is already a confirmed request for a contract from the Pentagon.
“Against international challenges and with the world's most capable technology sector, we can and must do more to identify and adopt impactful commercial technologies quickly and at scale,” Diu says in the strategy. “With recent changes from [DoD] leadership and Congress, we are now ready to help our partners across the department, interagency, in the commercial technology sector, and in allied and partner nations achieve these goals” .
This is a machine translation from Italian language of a post published on Start Magazine at the URL https://www.startmag.it/innovazione/ecco-come-il-pentagono-tende-una-mano-alle-startup-della-silicon-valley/ on Sun, 28 Apr 2024 07:07:28 +0000.