“We will unleash experimentation, eliminate bureaucratic barriers, focus our investments and demonstrate the execution approach needed to ensure we lead in military AI,” said Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. “We will become an ‘AI-first’ warfighting force across all domains.”
The Department will adopt a wartime delivery model focused on warfighting, intelligence and enterprise operations, with the aim of strengthening battlefield decision-making, accelerating intelligence processing and modernising daily workflows. These efforts are intended to directly support more than three million Department of War personnel.
Implementation of the strategy will be driven by seven Pace-Setting Projects, each led by a single accountable leader and operating under aggressive timelines. The projects are designed to establish a new AI execution standard by advancing AI-enabled warfighting concepts, accelerating intelligence-to-capability pipelines and deploying generative AI and AI agents across enterprise functions.
The strategy also includes expanded investment in AI compute infrastructure, broader access to data and initiatives to recruit leading American AI talent, while empowering small teams to tackle complex integration challenges. According to the Department, it will remove DEI considerations from AI systems to ensure “objective, mission first systems” that deliver decision superiority.
“Speed defines victory in the AI era, and the War Department will match the velocity of America’s AI industry,” said Emil Michael, Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering. “We’re pulling in the best talent, the most cutting edge technology, and embedding the top frontier AI models into the workforce — all at a rapid wartime pace.”
Source: United States Department of War (press release).
