Latest
  1. Johns Hopkins Bayview tells 3,182 patients an employee put their health data into a public AI tool
  2. China’s AI compute access expected to double in 2027, with US-designed chips about 65 per cent
  3. UK commits £100m to national AI Biosecurity Lab
  4. Moonshot AI releases Kimi K3.1 Pro with 1-million-token context window
  5. Residents in Newport and Cardiff oppose hyperscale datacentres near homes
  6. Study: Grok 4.7 picked Republicans in 92% of forced midterm answers, GPT-6.1 Sol picked Democrats in 97%
  7. Attackers exploiting the PHP flaws hand the break-in to AI agents, Unit 42 says
  8. Elvis Presley’s rightsholders sue Anthropic over training on 274 songs

Latest / Defence and security

ProgrammeDefenceUSReported

Pentagon announces Replicator to field thousands of cheap autonomous systems

See how this story connects

Source: DefenseScoopAlso reported by Executive Gov

Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks announced the Replicator initiative on 28 August 2023 at an NDIA conference, aiming to field attritable autonomous systems in the multiple thousands within 18 to 24 months across air, land and sea. She said it was meant to help overcome China’s advantage in mass; she oversees it with Vice Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Admiral Christopher Grady.

Why it matters

US drone and autonomy makers got a named Pentagon buyer with an 18 to 24 month deadline; the initial systems chosen for Replicator were announced in May 2024.

When
28 Aug 2023
ID
WTA-N-2023-0085
Who
Department of Defense, Defense Innovation Unit; Kathleen Hicks, Christopher Grady

Summary by wheresthe.ai, from DefenseScoop and the reporting credited above. We could not open the primary document, so it is marked Reported. Checked against the source on 9 Oct 2026.

Read the original at DefenseScoop

Source copy: download the page as saved on 18 Oct 2026 (PDF). Also held by the Internet Archive.

Next stop on this Storyline: Led toPentagon names first Replicator systems, including Switchblade 600, with about $500m

Cite this story

WTA-N-2023-0085: “Pentagon announces Replicator to field thousands of cheap autonomous systems.” wheresthe.ai, 28 Aug 2023. https://wheresthe.ai/d/us-replicator-initiative-announced-2023-08/ (source: DefenseScoop).

Spotted an error? Email [email protected].