{"id":17332,"date":"2022-11-19T01:44:40","date_gmt":"2022-11-18T17:44:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/defense-innovation-unit-explores-pacific-northwests-national-security-tech-frontier\/"},"modified":"2022-11-19T01:44:40","modified_gmt":"2022-11-18T17:44:40","slug":"defense-innovation-unit-explores-pacific-northwests-national-security-tech-frontier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/defense-innovation-unit-explores-pacific-northwests-national-security-tech-frontier\/","title":{"rendered":"Defense Innovation Unit explores Pacific Northwest\u2019s national security tech frontier"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full-width\"><img fetchpriority=\"high\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"630\" height=\"448\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/madsen1-630x448.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-737073\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/madsen1-630x448.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/madsen1-1260x895.jpg 1260w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/madsen1-768x546.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/madsen1-1536x1092.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/madsen1.jpg 1638w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" class=\"wp-element-caption\">Mike Madsen, the Defense Innovation Unit\u2019s acting director, talks at a Seattle workshop. (NSIN via Twitter)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>If space is the next frontier for national security, then the Pacific Northwest may well be the new frontier for that next frontier.<\/p>\n<p>That\u2019s the word from Steve \u201cBucky\u201d Butow, an Air Force brigadier general who is now director of the space portfolio at the Pentagon\u2019s Defense Innovation Unit.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI really think that the best news story out of the Pacific Northwest is just how impactful this region is in the new space economy,\u201d Butow told GeekWire. \u201cIt\u2019s not widely recognized, but I think that\u2019s going to be changing here in the near future.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Butow and his teammates at the DIU got an on-the-ground look at Seattle\u2019s tech frontier this week during a series of meetings and site visits in the region. Among the tour\u2019s highlights were meetings with executives at Amazon and Microsoft (which just won contracts to help build the Pentagon\u2019s Hybrid Space Architecture), a roadshow workshop with entrepreneurs and venture capital investors, and a stopover at SpaceX\u2019s satellite facility in Redmond, Wash.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"alignright size-full-width is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/butow-630x733.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-737211\" width=\"250\" srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/butow-630x733.jpg 630w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/butow-1084x1260.jpg 1084w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/butow-768x893.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.geekwire.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/11\/butow.jpg 1094w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 630px) 100vw, 630px\"><figcaption data-nosnippet=\"\" class=\"wp-element-caption\">Steve \u201cBucky\u201d Butow (DIU Photo)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>This wasn\u2019t the first Pacific Northwest meet-up for the Defense Innovation Unit, which doles out tens of millions of dollars to support commercial innovations with potential national security applications. But the field trip comes amid an upswing in the attention given to military tech.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a really critical decade,\u201d Johannes Schonberg, program director for the National Security Innovation Network\u2019s Mission Acceleration Centers, told attendees at Tuesday\u2019s regional roadshow in downtown Seattle. \u201cThe Pacific Northwest, I think, plays a really critical role.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Historically, Boeing has been the leading player for that role. But today, there\u2019s a much larger cast of characters. At the roadshow, DIU representatives said $24.5 million in grants have been awarded so far to Washington state ventures for prototype development, with additional Pentagon funds going toward production.<\/p>\n<p>On the space front, there\u2019s Amazon Web Services and Amazon\u2019s Project Kuiper satellite effort, Microsoft and its partnership with SpaceX for Azure cloud services, Xplore, BlackSky, New Frontier Aerospace and Tethers Unlimited. <\/p>\n<p>Space isn\u2019t the Northwest\u2019s only tech frontier: DIU has also provided grants to the Echodyne radar venture, Avalanche Energy and Ultra Safe Nuclear Corp., a company called Freefly Systems that builds drones for extreme environments, Pure Watercraft and the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re really good at spending other people\u2019s money,\u201d Butow joked.<\/p>\n<p>Strategic Robotic Systems is a standout: The Redmond-based company got in on an initial $600,000 grant to develop a prototype underwater robotic vehicle that could help out with explosive ordnance disposal. That led to a U.S. Navy procurement order for the robots that could be worth as much as $20.6 million.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Meet the Fusion Hybrid ROV\/AUV\" width=\"800\" height=\"450\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/31MhyRVnEZI?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen=\"\"><\/iframe><br \/>\n<\/figure>\n<p>Winning a Pentagon grant can provide a longer-term payoff by building investors\u2019 confidence in a venture. For example, DIU awarded a $2 million contract to Redmond-based Xplore last year to accelerate progress on that company\u2019s satellite platform. A few months later, Xplore reported bringing in a total of $16.2 million in venture capital and contracts.<\/p>\n<p>DIU\u2019s acting director, Mike Madsen, told attendees at this week\u2019s roadshow that his office is actually \u201cthree organizations in one\u201d: <\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>The core DIU organization, which aims to \u201cleverage fully baked commercial technology\u201d for the Defense Department. <\/li>\n<li>National Security Innovation Capital, which focuses on hardware investments on the frontiers of autonomy, communications, power, sensors and space.<\/li>\n<li>And the National Security Innovation Network, which brings together public and private organizations working on the tech frontier.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>\u201cWe see it as the evolution of the triangle of academia, industry and government that birthed not only Silicon Valley, but the tech hubs around the country, much like Seattle, as well as the collection of non-traditional companies where leading-edge development is taking place,\u201d Madsen said.<\/p>\n<p>The next challenge is to get traditional and non-traditional companies working together on the technologies that the Pentagon will need in the years ahead. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019re figuring out ways to work alongside the acquisition organizations earlier in the process, to help figure out how we can plug commercial technology in to the major defense systems more smoothly than we have been previously,\u201d said Cherissa Tamayori, DIU\u2019s director of acquisition. \u201cThat could often require integration into some of the major platforms owned by the primes. So that\u2019s something we\u2019re tackling. It\u2019s a hard problem.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Whatever DIU is doing, it seems to be working, at least according to members of Congress who want to increase its budget. \u201cDIU\u2019s work should be expanding, not shrinking,\u201d Rep. Jim Banks, R-Ind., said during a markup session in June.<\/p>\n<p>Rep. Adam Smith, the Washington state Democrat who chairs the House Armed Services Committee, agrees that DIU should be doing more \u2014 particularly in communities that are off the beaten track for tech.<\/p>\n<p>Innovations \u201cdon\u2019t just come from Silicon Valley,\u201d he said at June\u2019s session. \u201cThey don\u2019t just come from Bellevue. They come from all over the country, and I think it is appropriate to encourage DIU to find those.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>To widen the net, DIU and the National Security Innovation Network are expanding their nationwide network of innovation centers, with the Pacific Northwest Mission Acceleration Center serving as a model.<\/p>\n<p>This won\u2019t be the last time DIU pays a visit to Seattle.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ll give you something newsworthy, just as a teaser,\u201d Butow said. \u201cEvery year, we partner with the Space Force and the Air Force Research Lab to produce the State of the Space Industrial Base Report. And when we do our workshop in 2023, we\u2019re planning to do a regional breakout here in Seattle. \u2026 We need to do more to let the nation know how valuable the commercial base is up here.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mike Madsen, the Defense Innovation Unit\u2019s acting director, talks at a Seattle workshop. (NSIN via Twitter) If space is the next frontier for national security, then the Pacific Northwest may well be the new frontier for that next frontier. That\u2019s the word from Steve \u201cBucky\u201d Butow, an Air Force brigadier general who is now director [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4460,439],"class_list":["post-17332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-diux","tag-military"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17332"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17332\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}