ORN-2025-45

The AI bubble in Defense: What to expect in a burst:  If Artificial Intelligence is being developed in a financial bubble, and if this bubble bursts, several defense-related trends may be set into motion. First, defense contractors selling AI products or services may revert to an earlier tendency to re-package AI technologies under more palatable monikers, like “data analytics.” Second, national defense organizations in the United States and elsewhere may take up the mantle of basic AI research & development suitable for their own ends, capturing the value left in the bubble’s wake. Finally, defense contractors – facing a smaller pool of available capital to fund AI R&D – would face greater pressure to tailor their offerings to the mitigation of shortcomings in state-of-the-art AI models for specific defense applications.

Dual-use, dual-risk: AI is a dual-use technology; it can be applied to tasks or problems in either commercial or defense domains. The most impactful breakthroughs in AI research & development over the past fifteen-odd years were made by private actors operating within the commercial domain. These breakthroughs have allowed AI to be applied to a wider range of applications. While most of these applications are commercial — meant to increase the productivity of a company’s workforce and, with it, its marginal gains — defense organizations have accelerated existing efforts to identify use-cases for AI models and apply them in compliance with existing or new organizational standards. More information is posted on the NextGov website.

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11 companies move to second stage of DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has selected multiple technology companies working to innovate in the quantum computing industry to advance to the second stage of its Quantum Benchmarking Initiative to further verify the efficacy of these companies' quantum technologies. DARPA’s Quantum Benchmarking Initiative, launched earlier this year, is a government program supporting and evaluating quantum industry leaders' efforts to bring a fault-tolerant quantum computer to life and offers objective milestones each participating company must reach within the program. Stage A of the program — which required participants to describe a quantum computer concept with “a plausible path to realization in the near term,” per the DARPA website — included 15 companies. Stage B of the program — where government teams “will determine if their utility-scale quantum computer concept can be constructed as designed and operated as intended” — will feature 11 companies: Atom Computing; Diraq; IBM; IonQ; Nord Quantique; Photonic Inc.; Quantinuum; Quantum Motion; QuEra Computing; Silicon Quantum Computing; and Xanadu. DARPA confirmed the list of second stage firms on Thursday. More information is posted on the NextGov website.

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Energy allocates $625M for national labs’ quantum research: The Department of Energy is renewing funding for a series of research centers focused on quantum information sciences and technology, part of the 2018 National Quantum Initiative Act signed by President Donald Trump during his first term in office. Agency officials confirmed on Tuesday that $625 million in federal funding will be allocated to revitalize the five National Quantum Information Science Research Centers. The centers will focus on expanding different forms of quantum information technology research and development and individually work to advance quantum technology applications. The hubs are all headquartered within larger national laboratory complexes: the Co-design Center for Quantum Advantage at Brookhaven National Lab; the Superconducting Quantum Materials and Systems Center at Femi National Accelerator Laboratory; Q-NEXT at Argonne National Laboratory; the Quantum Systems Accelerator at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; and the Quantum Science Center at Oak Ridge National Laboratory. More information is posted on the NextGov website.