Indo-Pacific Command Gets AI Tools for Wargaming and Operational Planning
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The Pentagon’s “startup” program, the Defense Innovation Unit, has awarded a contract to a San Francisco tech company to turn modern AI into useful military planning and wargaming tools, which could help theater-level commanders decide how to deploy warships, aircraft and troops. If operationalized, the “Thunderforge” software initiative could have a profound effect on how the Navy and Marine Corps fight.<\/p>\n
According to Breaking Defense, the biggest operational advantage may be surprisingly mundane: collating and analyzing all the data needed to plan the logistical details of a military operation, which can take hundreds of hours of work using dated Pentagon computing systems. This would free up staff officers for more strategically-important tasks.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Thunderforge system draws on AI agents developed by Scale AI, along with Anduril’s Lattice platform and Microsoft’s large language model (LLM) products. The developers emphasized that the agents will always operate under human oversight.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Today\u2019s military planning processes rely on decades-old technology and methodologies, creating a fundamental mismatch between the speed of modern warfare and our ability to respond,” said Bryce Goodman, DIU Thunderforge Program Lead and contractor. “Thunderforge brings AI-powered analysis and automation to operational and strategic planning, allowing decision-makers to operate at the pace required for emerging conflicts.”<\/p>\n
The system will be deployed first with Indo-Pacific Command and European Command, the two regions with the most at stake in a high-end fight. Adm. Sam Paparo, commander of U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and a proponent of unmanned systems, commended DIU for its work to “iteratively develop, test, and ultimately field emerging technologies at speed and scale.” Maj. Gen. Peter Andrysiak, chief of staff at U.S. European Command, said that data-driven decisionmaking is more important than ever, and welcomed the advent of AI tools for higher efficiency. \u00a0<\/p>\n
“We will lead the Joint Force in integrating AI into operational decision-making. DIU\u2019s enhanced speed will provide our nation\u2019s military leaders with the greatest technological advantage,” said Alexandr Wang, Founder and CEO of Scale AI.
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