The Department of Defense’s third Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIUx) will be established in Austin, Texas, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said Wednesday in a visit to the city.
Two DIUx offices were previously established in Silicon Valley and Boston. All of the officers aim to link the Defense Department with key private technology sectors innovators and sectors so they can help address national security challenges.
“I created DIUx last year because one of my core goals as Secretary of Defense has been to build, and in some cases rebuild, the bridges between our national security endeavor at the Pentagon and America’s wonderfully innovative and open technology community,” Carter said in a statement.
“Austin’s commitment to innovation, access to talent and academia, as well as the department’s longstanding ties to Texas make this an ideal next location for DIUx,” he added.
Earlier this month Austin was widely considered the likely host for the third DIUx, particularly after Carter visited the city during a tour of technology hubs and it has several big tech firms that Carter has openly courted for military work. Austin is home to the University of Texas at Austin and 3M [MMM] as well as large contingents from Apple [AAPL], Cisco Systems [CSCO], Dropbox, eBay [EBAY], PayPal [PYPL], Facebook [FB] and Google [GOOGL] and Hewlett-Packard [HPQ] (Defense Daily, Sept. 7).
The new DIUx will differ from its sister sites by initially occupying space within the Austin technology incubator Capital Factory. The Austin DIUx will be led by Christy Abizaid, formerly deputy assistant secretary of defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia as well as a member of the National Security Council staff. Abizaid will report to DIUx Managing Partner Raj Shah. The remainder of the staff will mostly be filled by local reservists and National Guard members already working in the Austin tech community.
“This Austin presence will introduce us to even more innovators looking to help America’s warfighters. The entrepreneurs in this area, including many veterans, are working on cutting-edge technology that could benefit our troops. We want to make it easier for them to do business with the DoD,” Abizaid said in a statement.
The Defense Department noted the DIUx program has signed five agreements for $3.5 million with 22 more in the pipeline, for an additional $65 million of upcoming investment.
The DIUx operates on a co-investment model where it pools funds with the military end-users it works with. Therefore, for each $1 DIUx invests in technology, other parts of the department invest nearly $3.