U.S. News: Silicon Valley Seeks Closer Pentagon Tie --- Ex-Google CEO leads effort to sell software and hardware to U.S. for military purposes

"WASHINGTON -- Tech-industry leaders are pushing the Pentagon to adopt commercially developed technologies on a grand scale to counter the rise of China, an initiative that could transform the military and the multibillion-dollar defense-contracting business.

The Pentagon has long led the way in developing advanced technology that found its way into civilian applications, such as GPS and the internet. That balance has shifted, according to tech leaders and others. They contend that the private sector has more talent and greater research budgets than the government -- and more advanced capabilities in artificial intelligence and cloud computing -- all while the military grows more reliant on technology.

"From the president on down, everyone is saying, 'OK, we are in a competition with China,'" said Robert Work, a former U.S. deputy secretary of defense. "We are not organized to win the competition, and if we do not correct that, we are doomed to lose it."

Mr. Work is vice chairman of the National Security Commission on Artificial Intelligence, a panel created by Congress in 2018 and chaired by former Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt. Other members include Andy Jassy, chief executive of Amazon.com Inc.; Oracle Corp. CEO Safra Catz and top scientists from Microsoft Corp. and Alphabet Inc.'s Google.

In a report released this year, the commission laid out a road map for the Pentagon to buy commercially designed software and hardware to maintain a strategic edge, as China and other nations step up their tech investments.

The effort faces an array of skeptics and critics, including in some cases rank-and-file tech engineers. Google stepped back from an AI-driven software project with the Pentagon when employees in 2018 found out about it and revolted.

The Pentagon remains a profit-rich target for big tech companies. Analysts say Amazon, Microsoft, Google and others have ambitions to win more of the billions of dollars the Pentagon spends on procurement annually, a market historically dominated by contractors such as Lockheed Martin Corp.

"They don't enter markets with the goal of being No. 15," Andrew Hunter, a former Pentagon official and congressional staffer now at the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, said of large technology companies.

Google, Microsoft and Amazon declined to comment.

Outside the industry, many of those who believe tech companies have become too powerful are concerned that regulating these companies will become even more difficult if they hold additional sway as critical defense contractors.

Tech companies cast themselves as "the only solution to what they portray as an existential threat from China," said Shoshana Zuboff, Harvard Business School professor emerita and author of the book "The Age of Surveillance Capitalism." She says that the data-collection and ad-targeting practices of Google, Microsoft, and Amazon pose the bigger threat.

The Artificial Intelligence commission's recent findings have nonetheless won support from the Biden administration, the Pentagon and Congress.

"You have made crystal clear that our country needs to play catch-up, and fast," Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Mr. Schmidt and other commission members at a conference in July.

The commission's 756-page report concluded that China is already a peer of the U.S. in some areas of artificial intelligence and is funneling those advancements into its military. In contrast, U.S. "tech leaders and government officials talk about the importance of 'public-private partnership,' but there is little action in either direction to deepen it in concrete ways," the report says.

The commission envisions the military and intelligence bureaucracy working more like a large tech company, with a vast cloud-computing infrastructure enabling teams of engineers to constantly test new software and upgrade capabilities. Other recommendations by the commission include boosts to tech-focused research, training and recruitment efforts.

Reshaping the Defense Department will require rewiring not only hardware and software but also bureaucracy and procurement processes. The Pentagon has established Silicon Valley outposts, funded promising startups and tested technologies such as autonomous aircraft. But the department has struggled to adopt new technologies on a large scale, as exemplified by the yearslong legal and administrative battle over the JEDI cloud-computing initiative.

Mr. Schmidt says these hurdles can be overcome.

"What I've observed about the government bureaucracy," he said in an interview, "is you go in, and you push -- and if you push really hard, you can really make something happen."" [1]

 Here in Lithuania, we spend a billion euros a year on defense. We spend as freely as Greece: rusty Boxers, golden spoons, and so on. After all, we could make better use of information technology for defense purposes, as the Americans are now preparing to do. Will we catch the train this time? Is anyone between us pushing really hard in this area?

1. U.S. News: Silicon Valley Seeks Closer Pentagon Tie --- Ex-Google CEO leads effort to sell software and hardware to U.S. for military purposes
Ryan, Tracy.  Wall Street Journal, Eastern edition; New York, N.Y. [New York, N.Y]. 08 Sep 2021: A.2.