Kathleen Hicks, deputy secretary of the Department of Defense and a three-time Wash100 awardee, said DOD plans to deploy thousands of attritable, autonomous systems across multiple domains within the next 18 to 24 months as part of the Replicator program aimed at countering China’s military buildup.
“Replicator is meant to help us overcome the PRC’s biggest advantage, which is mass,” Hicks said Tuesday during her speech at a conference.
She said the attritable, autonomous platforms could serve as distributed, resilient systems in contested environments and will be developed in line with DOD’s ethical and responsible approach to artificial intelligence and autonomous systems.
“But Replicator will galvanize progress in the too-slow shift of U.S. military innovation to leverage platforms that are small, smart, cheap, and many,” Hicks noted.
The deputy defense secretary said she will oversee the Replicator initiative with support of the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and director of the Defense Innovation Unit.