Defense Tech Newsletter

INNOVATION

The New Era of Air and Missile Defense

Modern air and missile defense is approaching a structural limit. The model that protected forces over the past two decades remains effective, but only within a narrower envelope than current threats demand. A new approach is required, built on fire-control-level integration, disaggregated survivable architectures, affordable magazine depth, and the integration of offensive action as the central element of defense.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

The Power of the AI Chip: The Techno-statecraft Approach in the US-China Great Power Rivalry

The recent H200 chip export authorisation marks a new form of power signalling in the technopolitics sphere. Advanced AI chips are the newest weapons in the US-China great power rivalry, playing out in the battlefield of technological advancement and control. In the case of AI chips, state behavior shifts from the purely economic considerations typical of economic statecraft.

Researchers have classified this as a separate category known as techno-statecraft or techno-economic statecraft. American strategy lies in supply chain diversification, machinery export control, and geopolitical lobbying to hit Chinese semiconductor financing.

Multiverse raises $70M to help future-proof workforces in areas like AI

A UK company that has built a platform to help train people and organisations to future-proof them against technology evolutions has raised a large sum of money to future-proof its own business. Multiverse — which provides upskilling and apprenticeship programmes in artificial intelligence, data science and engineering — has raised $70 million in funding at a valuation of $2.1 billion.

Advanced AI models bring government to ‘reflection point,’ CIA official says

New technologies may bring risk and opportunity for the federal government, cyber experts explained.

TECHNOLOGY

xReality Completes MR Tech Project With Pentagon, Wins First Supply Deal

xReality Group has finalized a 5.6-million Australian dollar ($3.9 million) contract with the US Department of Defense and secured the first sale of its new MR-1 mixed reality training platform to another Pentagon customer.

Army Aviation’s Wasted Decade: Lessons for the Next Generation of Drone Integration

In 2006, the U.S. Army’s 25th Combat Aviation Brigade deployed to Iraq, where it paired Task Force ODIN (Observe, Detect, Identify, and Neutralize) with an Apache battalion from the 82nd Airborne Division — a first-of-its-kind teaming of attack helicopters with drones.

These units combined manned and unmanned sensors to identify and destroy improvised explosive devices and high-value targets, leveraging drones to fill gaps in traditional rotary wing aviation. Col. Jamie LaValley, at the time a captain with the 82nd, told me he felt he was witnessing “the future of warfare.” “Man, Army Aviation is on to something,” he recalls thinking. “It was apparent that a mass of sensors and weapon systems on a host of platforms provided a decisive advantage.”

Defense Tech Enters a New Era: The Case of Anthropic and the DoD

Defense technology often attracts people who are inclined to pay attention to the various stages of a normal technology’s lifecycle: its technical underpinnings and development; its relationship with existing techniques; the intended applications its development seeks to serve; and the process of testing and validating a system’s performance such that it is suitable for real-world deployment and operation. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is no exception.

POLICY

Defense and tech firms urge Trump to pause rare-earth magnet ban as supply crunch looms

Ai | A coalition of U.S. defense and tech companies is urging the White House to delay a ban on Chinese rare earth magnets, saying no near-term domestic alternative exists and an immediate prohibition would disrupt production across defense and advanced manufacturing, exposing hardware founders to acute geopolitical supply-chain risk.

Golden Dome defenders push back on $1.2T cost estimate

Program leader says CBO report based on Trump’s executive order doesn’t reflect current plans.

The Missing Piece in America's China Strategy Is India

The U.S. must take steps to make it easier to cooperate with India in defense as a counterweight to Beijing.

EUROPE

Destinus and Rheinmetall Unveil New Deep-Strike Missile

Our friends across the pond are pretty big on building up sovereign defense capabilities these days, and Rheinmetall has moved at lightning speed to snap up the lion’s share of that European military spending boom.

Today, the German defense giant and Dutch drone startup Destinus unveiled a new, co-produced long-range deep-strike cruise missile called the RUTA Block 3—the third and longest-range variant in their RUTA family of zoom and boom tech.

SECURITY

Trump says he and Xi talked US, Chinese cyberattacks, spying

The president seemed to suggest that the Chinese leader tacitly confirmed actions that lower officials routinely deny.