Almost 20 defense technology executives plan meetings Monday with Biden administration officials, House Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other lawmakers to push for speedier military procurement and more investment in pioneering technologies, steps they say are necessary to ensure the US maintains its innovation edge over China.
The group includes executives from established companies like Palantir Technologies Inc. and Anduril Industries Inc. as well as newer firms like drone-maker Swarm Aero.
The group, joined by venture capitalists Josh Wolfe of Lux Capital and Matt Ocko of DCVC Management Co., also plans to release an open letter on Friday warning of China’s advances and arguing that American “technological superiority and innovation are indispensable to deterrence.”
Many of the companies represented are part of an accelerating collaboration between the US government — especially the Defense Department — and hubs of American innovation like Silicon Valley. Founders and technology entrepreneurs describe both a patriotic sense of purpose as well as a business opportunity for companies that can navigate a procurement process that has calcified over decades of market consolidation around a few large contractors.
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Chris Power, the chief executive officer of Hadrian, a high-tech manufacturing company, said many Silicon Valley executives long thought of the government as “this big slow-moving beast that is not worth really engaging with.” Yet in recent years, he added, the government has begun to move from a model of “here is exactly what we want you to do” to “here is the mission that you need to fulfill, and here’s the incentive.”
The coordinated push from defense tech companies comes as Congress is beginning to grapple with how to regulate artificial intelligence. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer on Wednesday held a roundtable for senators with the chief executives officers of the largest US tech companies, including Microsoft Corp., Alphabet Inc., Meta Platforms Inc. and Tesla Inc.
While many of these giants have proposed regulatory safeguards to guard against the worst risks of powerful new AI tools, they have also warned against measures that they say would hinder innovation and allow Chinese advancements to surpass the US.