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29 articles in Defense · page 1 of 2
The Pentagon's Seven AI Projects Are a Deployment Test
The January 2026 strategy names seven pace-setting projects. The hard rule is model parity within 30 days, which collides with accreditation.
CMMC Flow-Down Reaches Your AI Vendors
A CMMC Level 2 assessment covers your network. It does not cover the annotation vendor that reads your CUI, and that is the gap contracts are written on.
The DeepSeek Ban Is About Jurisdiction, Not Quality
The Navy memo did not say the model was bad. It said where the data goes. That distinction decides how you write the control, and who has to prove it.
The Warfighter Order Is a Lever, Not a Ban
Executive Order 14372 does not ban buybacks outright. It makes capital allocation a past-performance issue the Secretary of War can use.
The Quantum Deadline Is Real. It Is Not 2026
NSA's schedule puts new national security systems on quantum-resistant algorithms by 2030, not next year. The hard part is cryptographic agility.
The Patent Holiday Is the Easy Part
DoD is offering no-fee licenses to a batch of its patents. The royalty was never the reason these technologies sit on a shelf.
CMMC Phase 1: What the Rule Actually Requires
The CMMC clause took effect on November 10, 2025, but DoD kept three years of discretion. The date matters less than the first bid you cannot submit.
Section 889 Is an Evidence Problem, Not a Tool Problem
The prohibition covers five vendors and two dates. No visibility platform can prove a bill of materials its suppliers will not disclose.
Human-Machine Formations: The Constraint Is the Operator
The Army has the robots. What it does not have is a plan for the people who supervise them, and that is the program's real bottleneck.
CMMC 2.0: The Deadline Is a Solicitation, Not a Date
The DFARS final rule took effect on 10 November 2025. Certification is phased in over three years, and the real clock starts with a solicitation.
Replicator 2 Is Counter-Drone Work, Not a Software Phase
The program's second line of effort went to countering small drones. The coordination software everyone talks about sits somewhere else.
TITAN Is in Production. The Hard Part Starts Now
The Army put TITAN into production with $192 million across Palantir and Anduril. Contract terms, not the demo, decide whether it stays software-defined.
The Pentagon's New Dependency Is Code, Not Advice
Hyperscalers no longer leave a roadmap behind. They leave a pipeline and a permission set, and the exit cost moves from recompete to migration.
APFIT Is a Bridge. It Is Not a Market.
APFIT funds the move from prototype to production. It does not guarantee a program of record, and that is the part contractors underrate.
Grok for Government Needs a Boundary, Not a Benchmark
xAI's federal pitch leans on FedRAMP. But no model gets an authorization, and FedRAMP High is not the same thing as a DoD impact level.
Cyber Command's AI Problem Is Evidence, Not Models
A pilot that works in a lab and cannot be accredited is not capability. In military cyber operations the model is the cheap part of the system.
JADC2 Data Fabric: Where the Schedule Actually Dies
JADC2 is not one system. It is a stack of accreditation decisions and data rights agreements, and that stack is where the schedule dies.
The Air Force Wants Structured Data, Not a Prettier Twin
DMM is Digital Materiel Management, and its hardest requirement is structured, secure data. A physics-accurate model is downstream of that.
The Army's MSD IDIQ Is Really About Continuous ATO
The Army's software vehicle treats authorization as an ongoing obligation. That moves contractor risk from the delivery date to sustainment.
The Hyper-Enabled Operator Is a Training Problem
At SOF Week 2025, SOCOM's own industry panel rated AI progress a six or seven out of ten and named digital fluency, not devices, as the gap.
A Swarm's Hard Problem Is Authority, Not Autonomy
Unmanned experiments keep proving the platforms work. The unsolved question is what a coordinated swarm may do when the link to its operator drops.
The Veteran Advantage in AI Is Not Discipline
Transition advice for veterans in AI usually lists certifications. The gap is a portfolio: a working system, an evaluation, and a decision you can defend.
An ERP Will Not Fix a Failed Audit
The department has never passed a full financial statement audit. A new ERP does not change the evidence problem that causes the failure.
The IL6 Problem Is the Model Catalog
Microsoft's own roadmap shows the classified cloud platform is authorized at IL6 while model hosting is still forecasted. The catalog is the gate.
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