Emil Michael is officially assembling his defense tech Power Rangers.
Just two months after announcing the six “critical technology areas” (CTAs) that the DoD will focus on for capability development, on Friday, the Pentagon CTO announced the six guys (yes, they’re all guys) that will lead the priority tech areas.
Leaders tapped include the newly named Chief Digital and Artificial Intelligence Officer (CDAO), former DARPA leaders, the Navy’s principal scientist for Biotechnology, and an Air Force hypersonic heavyweight.
If one thing is clear, it’s this: The vibe is less “Silicon Valley cool dude” and more “dyed in the wool DoD operators.” Now, the question is, will these longtime leaders actually be able to meet that three-year deadline Michael has set for rolling usable tech off the line?
Cut it down: A bit of context for those lucky enough to not frequent the Pentagon CTO news page: At the end of last year, Michael (a former Uber exec) announced that the DoD’s CTAs (the Department’s tech priorities and a pretty solid indicator of where R&D funding will go) would be cut from 14 during the Biden era to six.
Those shiny new categories are:
- Applied Artificial Intelligence (AAI)
- Biomanufacturing (BIO)
- Contested Logistics Technologies (LOG)
- Quantum and Battlefield Information Dominance (Q-BID)
- Scaled Directed Energy (SCADE)
- Scaled Hypersonics (SHY)
And Michael is not effing around with his picks to lead these.
- Applied Artificial Intelligence (AAI) will be led by Cameron Stanley, who was also tapped as CDAO last month (man, Rubio, you’ve started a trend). Stanley previously led Project Maven (otherwise known as the Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team) within the DoD, then went on to work on national security digital transformation at AWS.
- Biomanufacturing (BIO) will be led by Gary J. Vora, who’s spent most of his career at the Office of Naval Research as the Navy’s Principal Scientist for Biotechnology. His work sat at the intersection of synthetic biology, materials, sensing, and manufacturing, and he’s known for getting stuff out of the prototype stage and into actual, operational use and PoRs.
- Contested Logistics Technologies (LOG) will be led by Robert Mantz, who made his name in the Army Research Office (ARO) and DARPA. A lot of his experience is not just in sustainment, but also in power and energy storage. At DARPA, for example, he oversaw programs for advanced power systems, energy resilience, and sustainment technologies—the fuel, power, and mobility central to logistics in tricky areas.
- Quantum & Battlefield Information Dominance (Q-BID) will be led by Kevin Rudd, who also made his name at DARPA (and ONR). A lot of his work has focused on EW, radar, RF, and sensing—spectrum dominance, if you will. The focus on sensing and EW is interesting here—could indicate that quantum is being thought of as an enabler of effects rather than an end goal.
- Scaled Directed Energy (SCADE) will be led by Christopher Vergien, who has worked inside the DoD on R&E related to High-Energy Lasers (HEL) and High-Power Microwaves (HPM) (pew-pew). His OSD-level R&E background is important here—cross-service coordination, scaled-up testing, and getting stuff out of the prototype phase (and backed with real cash).
- Finally, Scaled Hypersonics (SHY) will be led by James W. Weber, who has long worked on hypersonics in the Air Force and OSD. He’s run portfolios worth well over $6B annually on propulsion, glide vehicles, test ranges, and industrial base issues—basically all the fun stuff to get hypersonics from concept to big-time, go-fast, go-boom. He’s got a high-level view of hypersonics—not just the missiles and aircraft themselves, but the testing and industrial might it takes to deploy them at scale.
In the statement announcing these appointments, the Pentagon CTO said the “appointment of these senior officials signals a commitment to accountability and a wartime mindset,” and that “leaders will drive the transformation of our six CTAs into fielded and scaled capabilities that are required to maintain America’s asymmetric advantage.”
There is a lot of emphasis on scale here, and no doubt that these dudes have helped develop warfighting tech at the very highest levels. But one question remains—can you get the Silicon Valley speed Michael (and the rest of the administration) wants with a squad of Pentagon Power Rangers?