Donald Trump’s “Golden Dome” rocket sign has triggered a lobby fight between Silicon Valley and America’s largest defense groups when they fight for a piece of the ambitious project of $ 175 billion.
The express call of the Trump management after “non-traditional” contractors has deleted the competition to create the experimental defense system and used established giants such as Lockheed Martin and Norththrop Grumman with tech groups to claim a larger proportion of Pentagon funds.
Since the battle probably attracts Peter Thiel to Elon Musk, the question is whether the Silicon Valley really has the defense fenders in order to continue muscles in a decades of military industrial complex.
“I appreciate some of the aggressiveness and the entrepreneurial spirit that exists in some of these start-up units,” said John Clark, head of technology and strategic innovation at Lockheed Martin, one of the great defense companies that helped the Silicon Valley seed decades ago.
“We want to move as quickly as everyone else, but at the end of the day we have to make sure that this stuff works,” added Clark.
Politicians are suddenly more complex. Spaceex – Already to the largest technology companies that work for the Pentagon, an important beneficiary of the project should be, but his role could be questioned according to the public Feels between Muschus and Trump.
However, dozens of other technical groups, including Microsoft and Peter Thiel’s Data Intelligence company Palantir and all the great author of the Legacy defenders, are offered.
The rocket defense agency plans to award 10 years of $ 151 billion in an open, competitive process. Therefore there is a lot of money for newer and older players. The agency received more than 500 answers to its information request.
The Northrop Grumman executives held an all-handed meeting on the Golden Dome last week, which they see as “transforming” for the industry, said Robert Fleming, head of the group Space Division, and expects the company to be involved in every layer of the project.
The playing field of companies such as Northrop and Lockheed is their recording of the proven, catted technologies in the scale requested by Trump.
Golden Dome, inspired by Israel’s “Iron Dome”, aims to found a spatial rocket sign to protect the United States from advanced rocket threats from countries such as Russia and China.
The system would include sensors that can capture the entire globe in real time, room-based interceptors such as “non-kinetic” lasers that can destroy a rocket second before the start, and generative AI models with which complex data records can be analyzed.
While the project is aiming to protect protection against new generations of ballistic and hypersian rockets, critics argue that it is unnecessary, expensive and trigger risks. Important elements of the technology are still unproven in development or in conflict.
The start-ups for defense technology have underlined the number and financing as wars in Ukraine and the Middle East as well as geopolitical tensions between the USA and China in recent years, which underlined the importance of modern technologies for national security.
Trump’s Pentagon sees these companies as “important for the future of rocket defense”, partly due to the rapid development of AI as well as the speed and the low price of commercial technology innovation compared to traditional defense actors.
However, the legacy companies still dominate the sector and have a lot more experience with weapons and technologies that are used in combat. Northrops Fleming emphasized the importance of distinction between “skills” and “efforts”.
Edward Abbo, C3 AI Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, said the Golden Dome would need both hardware and software that “requires data and generative and predictive AI on a scale”.
“The flood changes quickly,” said Abbo. “Now we see that the government actually prefers commercial off-the-shelf software.”
Musks SpaceX and Thiel’s Palantir have been working with the US government for about two decades. But now newer participants such as Anduril, C3 AI, Epirus, Saronic, Scaleai, Shieldai and true anomaly that have achieved all reviews of USD 1 billion.
Mike Brown, former director of the defense unit of the Pentagon and the current partner of the venture capital company Shield Capital, said that the administration is “Turbo invites how the USA buy commercial technology”.
Consumer technology companies such as Microsoft, Google and Openai have also exceeded cloud and AI software offers for US defense.
“I would not think about how much the prime numbers get compared to how much, how much these non-traditional get. How much does this help to obtain the non-traditional numbers,” said one person near the defense industry.
A crucial question, the person added whether the Golden Dome offers a necessary “cash infusion” to develop their manufacturing and technical skills as well as their understanding of war.
While Legacy Defense players also develop innovative technologies, their pitch focuses on their existing skills as well as production and delivery notes – even if they are often plagued by delays.
In order to create the complex technology and weapon systems required for the project, the Pentagon Legacy officers and technology groups need.
“The reality is that we both need,” said Kari Bingen, who acted as deputy sub -secretary of defense for secret services and security during Trump’s first term.
Michael O’hanlon, director of the Strobe Talbott Center for Security, Strategy and Technology at Brookings Institution, said Silicon Valley types will “be very good in Battle Management software” and could possibly be involved in proliferated sensor networks such as Starlink.
However, O’Hanlon showed doubts that Defense -Tech companies had the skills to build larger weapons such as Interceptor missiles. “This differs from the structure of smaller robotics and drones and requires more extensive special resources for prototyping and development,” he said.
According to Northrops Fleming, the established systems of the company that were hit before they were introduced to rockets are “critical”, as well as the next generation satellites, which could be an essential part of the Golden Cathedral rocket warning system. The group also has various suggestions and “proven skills” for room -based interceptors, even though they are classified.
Similarly, Lockheed began almost immediately after Trump’s executive order with the Pentagon with the Pentagon, which demanded the construction of the golden dome.
In the defense Ministry’s parking spaces, Lockheed has its Thaad and PAC-3 rocket defense systems, its long-term radar to protect against ballistic rocket attacks, its portfolio of land base, its Leo constellation satellites and the next generation abit, on which it is already working on.
Clark, Senior Vice President of Lockheed, said it also has the unique ability to integrate the hardware and software of any company that will be one of the greatest challenges of the project.
Lockheed has said government officials that Golden Dome will “try to try a ball with a ball” – a message in which the complexity of the project is emphasized.
According to PitchBook, investors have crept in more than $ 150 billion for start-ups in defense since 2021. So far, however, there have been only a few signs that newer participants have created a significant part of the US defense budgets, which are mainly output for Legacy workers such as Lockheed and Northrop.
SpaceX has Pentagon contracts worth $ 12.4 billion, Palantir has $ 3.6 billion contracts – plus subcontractors of more than $ 50 billion – and the contracts of Anduril a total of around $ 2 billion. SpaceX also concluded a starting contract of 5.9 billion US dollars in April.
All defense tech companies want to “become a prime”, and there will always be another start-up that “is waiting in the wings to then stop it,” said Bingen.
“SpaceX went from the start-up to the dominant room start provider … and there are others who probably want to lose it.”
