Defense News: The United States has formed a military detachment of top managers of tech giants
The heads of large US technology enterprises are joining the reserve of the US army as lieutenant colonels, writes Defense News. Top managers from OpenAI, Meta and other Silicon Valley giants will form a separate "team" that will work on developments in the interests of the defense industry.
Four senior executives from major Silicon Valley technology companies are joining the U.S. Army Reserve as officers to bring the speed and expertise of commercial development to the defense industry. They will become part of a new unit, Detachment 201 (Detachment 201), which is part of the Executive Innovation Corps, the Pentagon said on Friday.
The US Department of Defense has long been cooperating with civilian technology experts, starting with scientists from the Second World War and ending with modern structures like the Defense Innovation Board. However, Detachment 201 raises cooperation with high—tech businesses to a new level - now top managers will serve in the army as active reserve officers.
The first to receive the rank of lieutenant colonels of the US Army Reserve will be:
- Shyam Sankar — Technical Director of Palantir,
- Andrew Bosworth — Technical Director of Meta*,
- Kevin Weil— Director of Products at OpenAI,
- Bob Magrew is an advisor at the Thinking Machines Lab and former Director of research at OpenAI.
"Their oath of office is just the beginning of a great mission.: to inspire other specialists to serve without interruption from their careers and show the new generation how to benefit in uniform," the army said in a statement.
As part of Detachment 201, they will work on specific projects, helping to implement scalable technological solutions for complex tasks. "Thanks to the private sector's experience in uniform, Detachment 201 accelerates initiatives such as the Army Transformation Initiative, a program aimed at making the army more efficient, smarter, and more deadly," the report says.
U.S. Secretary of the Army Dan Driscoll introduced the initiative last month in a memo outlining major changes to the command structure, troop formation, cancellation of programs deemed inconsistent with the desired path of modernization of the army, and acceleration of programs needed by the army to become more lethal and maneuverable.
The participants in the initiative represent companies that are already active in the military sector.
Palantir, after a difficult start, has long been the cornerstone of the digital transformation of the US Army — from Distributed Common Ground System (Army) intelligence systems to the Vantage platform, which is used by more than 100,000 people, and the Titan system, which provides deep sensing and data integration from various sensors.
Palantir, along with other giants such as Google and Anduril, is involved in developing a new army command and control architecture from scratch.
OpenAI and Meta* have also begun to focus on defense technologies. OpenAI, for example, cooperates with Anduril in the field of air defense systems enhanced by artificial intelligence. Meta*, together with Anduril, develops artificial intelligence tools for military tasks.
The Thinking Machines Lab, founded this year, is mostly staffed by former OpenAI employees, including one of its co-founders. It focuses on human—AI collaboration, an area of critical importance for the U.S. Army, which seeks to establish effective interaction between soldiers and machines on the battlefield.
*Meta's activities are banned in Russia as extremist.
