AI and the Future of Warfare with US Under Secretary of War Emil Michael

The geopolitical landscape is shifting at an unprecedented pace, driven by the most significant military buildup in history by the People's Republic of China. To meet this challenge, the United States is undergoing a radical transformation in how it approaches defense, technology, and procurement. Emil Michael, the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering and Chief Technology Officer, recently outlined a new strategic vision that blends Silicon Valley urgency with the scale of the American military. By prioritizing speed, recruiting top technical talent, and embracing "new primes" like SpaceX and Anduril, the Department aims to ensure American dominance in an era of near-peer competition.

Key Takeaways

• Focus on Speed and Scale: The Department is moving away from decades of slow bureaucracy to adopt an "Uber-style" urgency, prioritizing rapid deployment of technology over perfect, lengthy procurement cycles.
• Applied AI is Central: Rather than building foundation models, the military is integrating commercial AI for enterprise efficiency, intelligence fusion, and autonomous warfighting capabilities.
• Revitalizing the Industrial Base: There is a critical push to diversify the defense industrial base, moving from five major contractors back to a robust ecosystem that welcomes startups and new entrants.
• Strategic Supply Chain Independence: A major initiative is underway to "domesticate" the production of critical components, such as rare earth minerals and brushless motors, to reduce reliance on adversaries.
• Bridging the Valley of Death: New funding mechanisms and lending authorities are being utilized to help innovative companies scale manufacturing and survive the gap between prototype and production.

The Shift to Urgent Innovation

For decades, the Pentagon's acquisition process was defined by sluggishness and consolidation. In the 1980s, there were 50 major defense contractors; today, there are only about five. This consolidation created a rigid system where new entrants often had to resort to litigation just to compete.

"It's crazy to me that SpaceX and Anduril and Palantir all had to sue the Department of War for their first contract. So the idea is you don't have to sue anymore. Come through the front door because people are not going to fight you."

The current administration is dismantling these barriers. By separating acquisition from research and engineering, the Department allows leaders to focus on "strategic surprise"—modifying existing systems and rapidly deploying new technologies. This approach is modeled on the "fixer/builder" mentality found in successful technology startups, aiming to run over bureaucratic barriers rather than be stopped by them.

Prioritizing for Impact

When leadership analyzed the Department's existing focus, they found 14 "critical" technology areas—a number so high that it effectively meant nothing was a priority. To ensure operational success, these were streamlined down to six key areas with engineering sprints behind them. Top priorities now include:

• Scaled Hypersonics: Moving beyond "exquisite" and expensive missiles to mass-producible, cost-effective hypersonic weapons capable of maneuvering at Mach 5 or higher.
• Directed Energy: utilizing high-powered microwaves and lasers to counter drone swarms. This creates a favorable cost asymmetry, using cheap energy "zaps" to take down inexpensive drones rather than wasting multi-million dollar missiles.
• Applied AI: Rapidly integrating artificial intelligence into daily operations and combat systems.

The Role of Applied AI in Modern Warfare

The Department of War—the world's largest employer with 3 million personnel—is not attempting to build its own foundation models. Instead, the strategy is Applied AI: adapting billions of dollars of private sector innovation for military use cases.

This initiative has already seen the launch of genai.mill, a secure internal AI platform. Developed by a "tiger team" of engineers from Databricks, Meta, and AWS in just 60 days, the platform has already onboarded over one million unique users. The implementation focuses on three pillars:

1. Enterprise Efficiency: Reducing the drudgery of bureaucracy, such as writing 300-page requirement documents, allowing personnel to focus on high-value tasks.
2. Intelligence Fusion: Leveraging AI to assist analysts in combing through satellite imagery and data streams, fusing disparate intelligence sources to identify threats that humans might miss.
3. Warfighting and Simulation: Enhancing wargaming capabilities and tactical planning.

Autonomous Systems and Robots

Looking 5 to 10 years into the future, the mix of military hardware will shift significantly toward autonomy. The conflict in Ukraine has demonstrated that robots are becoming the new front line.

"In a territorial battle... [it is] less costly in human life if you have robots fighting first and then before humans come in. Without the drone warfare in that area of the world, you probably would have seen way more human casualties."

Future defense budgets will likely see 20% to 30% allocated to autonomous systems—submarines, boats, and aircraft—which offer greater firepower at a lower cost compared to traditional heavy platforms.

Rebuilding the Arsenal of Freedom

A major lesson from recent years is that the US defense industrial base had become dangerously brittle. To restore the "warrior ethos" and operational fitness, the Department is engaging in an "Arsenal of Freedom" tour, visiting manufacturers to signal a demand for production capacity.

The goal is to move from writing restrictive requirements to presenting problems and asking industry for solutions. This opens the door for startups that excel at innovation but struggle with 300-page questionnaires. However, there is a distinct challenge for Silicon Valley founders entering this space: manufacturing at scale.

It is not enough to build a prototype; companies must prove they can produce units in the thousands flawlessly. The stakes are fundamentally different than in the commercial sector.

"Don't have illusions that this is sort of a deal with Uber... This is still a government and we have to make sure stuff works because lives are at stake."

Securing the Supply Chain

A critical vulnerability identified by the Department is reliance on adversaries for essential components. From the germanium used in optics to the brushless motors in drones, the supply chain has become fragmented and dependent on foreign powers.

To counter this, the Office of Strategic Capital is deploying financial tools, including a $200 billion lending authority, to "domesticate" these industries. By offering low-cost loans, the government signals demand to private equity and venture capital, encouraging them to invest in American manufacturing. This approach aims to eliminate the "valley of death"—the funding gap that often kills promising defense startups before they can reach full-scale production.

The vision is a distributed industrial base, where critical components are manufactured across the United States, from Montana to North Carolina, ensuring that the nation is never held hostage by a supply shortage during a crisis.

Conclusion

The Department of War is operating with a renewed sense of clarity and urgency. By acknowledging the capabilities of near-peer adversaries and the rapid technological shifts in warfare, the US is actively pivoting toward a more agile, tech-centric defense posture. For entrepreneurs and engineers, this represents a unique "call to service"—an opportunity to apply cutting-edge technology to national survival. With massive resources now aligned behind innovation, the friction between Silicon Valley and the Pentagon is being replaced by a unified mission to ensure the future of global security.