Kathleen Hicks, deputy secretary of the Department of Defense and a three-time Wash100 awardee, said DOD is working to speed up the deployment of attritable, autonomous systems across all domains through the Replicator program as part of efforts to get over the “production valley of death.”
At a previous conference, Hicks announced that the Replicator initiative seeks to counter China’s military buildup by fielding thousands of attritable, autonomous systems across multiple domains within the next 18 to 24 months.
“So, Replicator will use existing funding, existing programming lines, and existing authorities to accelerate production and delivery at scale — by exerting leadership focus and attention on a singular operational challenge and maturing solutions, because that’s what ultimately delivers,” Hicks said at a conference Wednesday.
“With Replicator, we’re beginning with all-domain, attritable autonomy, or ADA2, to help us overcome the PRC’s advantage in mass: more ships, more missiles, more forces,” she added.
Through Replicator, the deputy DOD secretary said ADA2 will work to address the challenge of anti-access, area-denial systems posed by China and that the department will leverage the Deputy’s Innovation Steering Group to give key DOD stakeholders a seat at the table.
“Our task through this initiative is bringing leadership across the department around that DISG table to help ensure those ripe enough to scale actually do get scaled, by elevating and accelerating what we do and cutting red tape, so they’re delivered to warfighters in 18-to-24 months,” Hicks said.