At a time of increased geopolitical tensions and rapid technological progress, the United States continues to prioritize defense innovation to maintain its world leadership and national security. With a defense budget of $ 850 billion offered for 2025, including an important allowance for research and development, the Ministry of Defense takes advantage of advanced technologies and promotes public-private partnerships to stay in advance. By examining the landscape of defense technological investment and DOD efforts to fill the gap between innovation and production, we examine how the United States use the power of innovators to meet the latest national security challenges.
In 2023, DOD published the Strategy of National Defense Science and Technology (NDSTS), which articulated the priorities of the ministry and the importance of “taking advantage of critical emerging technologies … to strengthen our competitive advantages … which will contribute to Ensure our long -term national security. “This is based on the technological vision of the DOD established in 2022 by the Defense Under-Secretary for Research and Engineering Heidi Shyu, which describes 14 critical technological areas, in particular quantum science, AI and the Autonomy and space technology as part of the national national defense strategy.
From major defense holders to small startups, the DOD works with a variety of partners to meet its needs. However, for startups with close resources and less familiar with the operation of the DOD, the purchase of a government contract can be a very difficult process to navigate. This is a problem, because startups are often those that develop the latest technological innovations. Many startups meet the “death valley”, the difficult period between receiving initial government funding and the realization of marketing. To solve this problem, the DOD redefined how it collaborates with private companies. This, combined with large quantities of private capital, means that the success rate of defense technological startups could considerably improve.
To support startups To overcome these financing challenges, the DOD operates research transfer programs on small businesses on innovation (SBIR) and small businesses (STTR) through the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA ). These DARPA programs provide funding to the founders who apply to conduct research and develop prototypes according to the needs of defense agencies. Requests for the time and capital of a startup can be important because they go from the concept (phase I) and from the prototype (phase II) to marketing (phase III). Over the past decade, only 16% of companies financed by DOD SBIR have received phase III contracts.