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Unmanned Systems

Pentagon to Pick Replicator Contenders in Next Three Weeks

Frank Wolfe

Tuesday, November 21st, 2023

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Pentagon to Pick Replicator Contenders in Next Three Weeks

An F-15E Strike Eagle from the 96th Test Wing’s 40th Flight Test Squadron at Eglin AFB, Fla. flies on July 25 with an XQ-58A Valkyrie flown by artificial intelligence agents (U.S. Air Force photo)

The Pentagon is to pick the Replicator contenders in the next three weeks, and DoD estimates a unit cost in the tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, as the U.S. seeks to field several thousand autonomous, attritable assets in the next two years to counter China, Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said on Nov. 21. Replicator is not a program of record, but an initiative to make it easier for systems to cross the modernization "valley of death" and…

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