US moves for AI dominance to outpace China with new ‘overwhelming’ military strategy

America’s top defence official declared that the US must achieve unquestioned AI “dominance” to prevent adversaries from gaining a technological edge, as he unveiled a strategy that includes integrating Elon Musk’s chatbot Grok. Secretary of Defence Pete Hegseth’s announcement did not mention China by name, but it came a month after a report to the US Congress in which the Pentagon warned of Beijing’s accelerating use of AI to reach its military modernisation goals. On Monday, Hegseth said the “old era” of “stifling bureaucracy” hindering American entrepreneurs would “end today” and that US warfighters must be immediately equipped with “overwhelming and lethal technology” in modern warfare. He delivered his remarks in a speech at Musk’s SpaceX Starbase in Texas, the primary production and testing hub for the company’s Starship launch vehicles. Hegseth said the US was “done running a peacetime science fair while our potential adversaries are running a wartime arms race”. The Pentagon chief added that the question of how to harness innovation coming out of America’s artificial intelligence ecosystem was “front and centre”, saying it had the potential to “disrupt and transform every area of human endeavour”. Citing US President Donald Trump’s executive order on advanced technology in December, Hegseth stated that “it is the policy of the United States to sustain and enhance America’s global AI dominance in defence of human flourishing, economic competitiveness and national security”. “We must ensure America’s military AI dominance so that no adversary can exploit that same technology to hold our national security interests or our citizens at risk,” he added. “‘America first’ in every domain.” Hegseth’s visit to Starbase was part of his nationwide “Arsenal of Freedom” tour of major US defence and technology companies. Before visiting Starbase, Hegseth travelled to Lockheed Martin’s F-35 production facility in Fort Worth, Texas. Following Hegseth’s remarks, the Pentagon on Monday released its AI acceleration strategy, which said that AI-enabled warfare and AI-enabled capability development would “redefine the character of military affairs over the next decade”. The strategy described the transformation as a race fuelled by the “accelerating pace of commercial AI innovation coming out of America’s private sector”. According to a document on the strategy, “The United States military must build on its lead over our adversaries in integrating this technology, established during President Trump’s first term, to make our warfighters more lethal and efficient.” The Pentagon strategy stressed warfighting, intelligence and enterprise operations that would “strengthen battlefield decision-making, rapidly convert intelligence data and modernise daily workflows” for its 3 million personnel. “We will unleash experimentation, eliminate bureaucratic barriers, focus our investments and demonstrate the execution approach needed to ensure we lead in military AI,” Hegseth said. “We will become an ‘AI-first’ warfighting force across all domains.” As part of the strategy, Hegseth also revealed on Monday that Musk’s AI chatbot Grok would join Google’s generative AI engine in operating inside the Pentagon network by later this month. The Pentagon chief’s remarks come as the US and China accelerate their race to integrate military AI, each seeking a decisive edge in modern warfare. While the Joe Biden administration prioritised safety protocols to mitigate the potential misuse of AI, the Trump administration has accelerated the technology’s military integration, citing a need to outpace China’s rapidly advancing capabilities. According to the Pentagon’s report on China’s military power published in December, the Chinese defence industry was “researching, developing and delivering AI capabilities” to the People’s Liberation Army. It said Beijing was advertising an “increasingly diverse” portfolio of military-specific AI systems. These included cyber applications and information operations aimed at influencing narratives as well as increasing the autonomy of uncrewed systems. The report said that China’s development of commercial AI “probably will benefit the PLA’s cyberspace capabilities” by enhancing certain aspects of both offensive and defensive operations. In his remarks, Hegseth stressed a need to streamline and accelerate technological innovation within the US military, outlining an overhaul of the department’s ecosystem in this area that would be led by the Pentagon’s chief technology officer. “Our adversaries may have thought they finally broke American power. They’re wrong,” he said. “They do not have our entrepreneurs. They do not have our capital markets. They do not have our combat-proven operational data from two decades of military and intelligence operations. They do not have our hard-won classified technologies.”

US moves for AI dominance to outpace China with new ‘overwhelming’ military strategy

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Pentagon chief urges preventing adversaries from gaining tech edge as he unveils strategy that includes integrating Elon Musk’s chatbot Grok

Pentagon chief urges preventing adversaries from gaining tech edge as he unveils strategy that includes integrating Elon Musk’s chatbot Grok