Following the sunsetting of Task Force Lima last year and coming on the heels of the AI Rapid Capabilities Cell is Thunderforge, the Department of Defense’s newest artificial intelligence endeavor. With the project, the Pentagon is looking to boost its planning, decision-making capabilities and operational protocol. And it has recruited a major player in the commercial AI space to share the lift — the San Francisco-based company Scale AI.
The Defense Innovation Unit, the main DOD component behind Thunderforge, awarded Scale AI a prime prototype contract to create and test various elements that will comprise this system, DIU said Wednesday.
Want to connect with DOD officials about how to partner on new AI tech? Be sure to attend the Potomac Officers Club’s 2025 AI Summit on March 20. DIU Senior Adviser William McHenry will speak on a panel about AI’s impacts on national security. Network with McHenry, as well as representatives from all of the top GovCon companies, at the event!
What Will Thunderforge Do?
DIU leaders have cited how the current approaches to planning are outdated and not equipped to match the intense agility and modernized apparatuses of the current threat landscape. Thus, Thunderforge is meant to use AI to bring things up to speed. Advanced modeling and simulation and automated workflows will be incorporated into the military’s arsenal.
“Scale AI is honored to lead Thunderforge. Our AI solutions will transform today’s military operating process and modernize American defense,” said Alexandr Wang, founder and CEO of Scale. “Working together with DIU, Combatant Commands, and our industry partners, we will lead the Joint Force in integrating AI into operational decision-making.”
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At least at first, Thunderforge will be carried out in the Indo-Pacific and Europe, under the auspices of the U.S. commands stationed there. There, the AI systems developed by Scale and its partners will be used for “campaign development, theater-wide resource allocation, and strategic assessment,” per DIU.
Who Will Work With Scale?
Working alongside Scale will be Anduril and Microsoft. The former will provide its Lattice modeling/simulation software, which will be applied to Scale’s large language model, while the latter will itself contribute LLMs.
Concerns
According to reporting by CNBC, some critics are concerned about the level of autonomy that might be given to machines in warfighting scenarios and how much human involvement will be at play.
Many AI companies, such as OpenAI and Anthropic, have walked back their declarations to not solicit business from the military and/or to be used in situations that may put human life at risk.
However, Scale stresses in its press release about the contract award that the integration of AI into “large-scale military applications” should be done “under careful human supervision” and that the “custom agentic workflows” it will be creating will function “always under human oversight.”
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