Booz Allen Hamilton [BAH] on Wednesday released its list of emerging technologies
that it believes should be prioritized to meet the needs of the Defense Department and intelligence community, a register that includes artificial intelligence-related capabilities, autonomous robotic swarms, hypersonics, and others.
The technology and professional services company also culled a list of startups developing technologies and solutions for each emerging technology area.
The top 10 technologies include AI accelerator chips, alternative position, navigation, and timing (PNT), autonomous swarms, generative AI software development, high-density energy storage, hypersonics, multimodal AI, non-kinetic counter-unmanned aircraft systems (C-UAS), post-quantum cryptography, and space domain awareness technology.
The report says that DoD is not close to taking full advantage of these technologies and that it needs a strategic approach to do so.
“For the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community, addressing this challenge increasingly means rapidly identifying, adopting, prototyping, and fielding dual-use commercial technology,” Susan Penfield, Booz Allen’s chief technology officer, writes at the start of the report. “Fortunately, the resources DoD needs are already at its fingertips: The U.S. is home to far and away the largest, most dynamic, and most innovative technology ecosystem in the world. It is one of our nation’s most valuable resources, yet one that is severely underutilized by DoD—to its detriment.”
Some of the emerging innovators and the technology areas they are working in include Darkhive, Saronic, and VATN Systems for autonomous swarms, Epirus, Hidden Level, and D-FEND Solutions around C-UAS, LeoLabs, True Anomaly, and Albedo for space domain awareness, Hermeus and Venus Aerospace for hypersonics, and TrustPoint, Psionic, and Infleqtion in alternative PNT.
Booz Allen’s list of emerging technologies is narrower and more specific than DoD’s list, which covers 14 critical technology areas for investment. DoD’s list includes biotechnology, quantum science, future generation wireless technology, advanced materials, trusted AI and autonomy, integrated network systems-of-systems, microelectronics, space technology, renewable energy generation and storage, advanced computing and software, human-machine interfaces, directed energy, hypersonics, and integrated sensing and cyber.