Editor\u2019s note: This story has been updated to include information from a Pentagon spokesperson.<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n
WASHINGTON \u2014 The Pentagon committed on Monday to fielding thousands of attritable, autonomous systems across multiple domains within the next two years as part of a new initiative to better compete with China.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The program, dubbed Replicator, was announced by Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks, speaking at the National Defense Industrial Association\u2019s Emerging Technologies conference here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cReplicator will galvanize progress in the too-slow shift of U.S. military innovation to leverage platforms that are small, smart, cheap and many,\u201d Hicks said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hicks and Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Christopher Grady will oversee the program, with support from Doug Beck, director of the Defense Innovation Unit. Further details, Hicks said, will be released in the coming weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Replicator rests on two assumptions. The first is that China\u2019s core advantage is mass \u2014 \u201cmore ships, more missiles, more people,\u201d as Hicks said \u2014 and that the United States\u2019 best response is to innovate, rather than match that pound for pound.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second is that attritable, autonomous systems are the right form of innovation. Hicks pointed to the war in Ukraine, in which cheap, often commercial drones have proven indispensable on the battlefield for reconaissance, targeting, and attacks. Russia too, she said, appeared to have a similar mass before launching its invasion last February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, this program is squarely focused on China. Hicks called this moment a \u201cgenerational challenge to American society.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201dWe\u2019ll counter the [People\u2019s Liberation Army\u2019s] mass with mass of our own, but ours will be harder to plan for, harder to hit, and harder to beat,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even so, Hicks noted the Pentagon will remain focused on its core systems. \u201cAmerica still benefits from platforms that are large, exquisite, expensive, and few,\u201d she said. Instead, she said, Replicator is particularly focused on accelerating DoD\u2019s recent investments in autonomous systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Replicator\u2019s goal of fielding small drones in high numbers and on a rapid timeline echoes calls from former DIU director Mike Brown for the Pentagon to better leverage commercial innovation to deliver capability at scale \u2014 an approach he called a \u201chedge strategy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
House appropriators have backed that idea in their fiscal 2025 defense spending bill. The legislation would allocate $1 billion toward establishing a DIU-managed hedge portfolio made up of low-cost drones, agile communication and computing modes and AI capabilities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Department of Defense requested $1.8 billion for artificial intelligence for fiscal 2024 and was overseeing more than 685 related projects as of 2021. Replicator is intended to pull those investments together and further scale production, Hicks said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a reorganization of largely existing funds, and expected to cost in the range of the hundreds of millions,\u201d wrote Eric Pahon, a spokesman for Hicks, in an email.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This is far from the first Defense Department innovation program, and Hicks invoked several past ones near the top of her speech. Such initiatives, in the past, were referenced so often they nearly became buzzwords.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hicks is betting against that outcome today. \u201cWe know we can do it,\u201d she said. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t mean it\u2019s without risk. We\u2019ve got to take a big bet here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The program will seek to scale unmanned, attritable systems to offset China’s bulk capacity, Hicks said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":117688,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-noindex":"","_yoast_wpseo_meta-robots-nofollow":"","_yoast_wpseo_canonical":"","_acf":"","_yoast_wpseo_primary_category":19,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","_smg_distribution_targets":{"9":{"categories":["unmanned","it-networks","newsletters","daily-brief","home","battlefield-tech"],"primary_category":"unmanned"}}},"categories":[160,19,27],"tags":[],"coauthors":[3458],"class_list":["post-64817","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-daily-news-roundup","category-pentagon","category-unmanned"],"acf":{"subheadline":"","legacy_arc_id":"O3HRXC2QFJHONJTUKHI46TDHAQ","arc_canonical_url":"\/pentagon\/2023\/08\/28\/pentagon-unveils-replicator-drone-program-to-compete-with-china\/","remove_feature_photo":false,"is_sponsored":false,"subtype":"","redirect_url":"","disable_inline_ads":false,"native_logo_pretext":"Presented By:"},"yoast_head":"\n