Speaking from the DIU campus in Mountain View, California, DIU Director Doug Beck said officials from across the department have been keenly focused on aligning capabilities with operational needs as DoD moves forward with the first iteration of Replicator.
“This is a whole-of-department effort,” Beck said, adding that capturing input from across the services and combatant commands is critical to ensuring the department delivers capabilities that meet the objective Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks identified as part of the effort.
“That whole-of-department team must be central and is central to that process from the beginning and will have to be throughout so that we can both deliver that capability and also build the new muscle to do this well,” he said.
Hicks unveiled the Replicator initiative in August.
The first iteration of the initiative is focused on fielding thousands of autonomous systems across multiple domains within the next 18-to-24 months, as part of the Pentagon’s strategy to counter China’s rapid armed forces buildup.