Artificial intelligence, 5G and hypersonic in the US military budget

Bayanalysis - “Being the best today is no guarantee that we will be the best tomorrow—not in an age when technology is changing the character of war itself, and our potential adversaries are deliberately eroding our capacity.” - US Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. . Austin.

Modernizing our military requires successful research, technical maturity, prototyping, systems integration, and testing capability to transform innovative and disruptive technology into sustainable, field-based military systems.

The US Army's 2022 budget requests $2.3 billion for various microelectronics efforts critical to long-term national security. The United States' means of producing advanced, domestically secured microelectronics is fragile and threatened.

Key efforts include:

Investments in local design, manufacturing and packaging capabilities and the ability to improve access to reliable, modern microelectronics, and increased access options for radiation-hardened parts;

- the acquisition of sufficient quantities of old microchips and the retention of the ability to maintain weapons systems in the short term; And the

Expand coordination across the department and with the entire government to ensure the effective transition of microchips with advanced capabilities to existing and next generation weapons systems.

The development of microelectronics technology with advanced capabilities directly affects the successful introduction of disruptive technologies, including the following advanced enablers:

- Hypersonic: increases the amount of Army Long Range Hypersonic (LRHW) batteries sent into the field; Increased Navy Conventional Quick Strike (CPS) funding to add DDG 1000 class destroyers as launch pads with the purchase of more weapons, add funds to begin purchasing the Air Force's Advanced Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), and add funding to mature air launch hypersonic cruise missile capability (year Finance 2022, $3.8 billion)

Artificial Intelligence (AI): Reflecting the rapidly growing importance of AI in every aspect of department operations, the Department of Defense’s AI efforts now stand at more than 600, up nearly 50 percent from FY 2021 (FY 2022, $874 million)

5G (fifth generation) wireless networks: the transformative scale of greater network bandwidth and speed, enabling a trillion-sensor world, thus generating more data from more sensors and sources (FY2022, $398 million)